Counterblast!

How does racing respond to Animal Aid and the ill-informed 'antis'?

The Grand National Festival WILL give a platform to these people - here's the antidote

Twitter @RacingWhat

Transcript

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Welcome to the Rap Podcast. Two in three days on the subject of the Grand National. This one comes to you off the back of some heat that I've been getting on social media for the cast that I put out a couple of days ago, wherein I talked about my feelings that it would be better if the Grand National was completely done away with, just abandoned quietly and forgotten about. The basis for that argument being it doesn't appeal to the purest anymore. It's not the test of old that it was. And B, it gives a platform for animal aiders and aunties and people that want to stick the knife into our sport to get their yar yars out, to give them a focal point for a few days of the year, because horses don't die the rest of the year, they only die at the Grand National. To give them a focal point for their ill-informed rantings. I received a bit of heat for that. Mostly centred around the fact that because I was arguing that the race wasn't the spectacle it was of old, I am somehow pro-horses' deaths, I'm not cognizant of horses' safety, and I wanted to return to the bad old days where loads of horses would die off the back of the Grand National, and I'm a bloodthirsty oik. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but you know, that was the sort of sentiment behind a lot of the postings that I was getting on social media. So this is an answer back to that, if you like. And I'm gonna read you something now, and reading is just oh so lame on podcasts. You tune into a podcast to hear some original thought, to hear somebody, in my case, open the microphone and just go and come out with a stream of consciousness, whatever is on the guy's mind at the time, and and and out it comes for better or worse. That's it, publish and be damned. So, you know, reading is like I say, a fairly sort of a lame way of making content, but I think in this case it serves a purpose. It was an article that I wrote a couple of years back after the Grand National, um, when there'd been a couple of deaths of horses in the race, and it was published on a platform that I was writing for at the time. And well, this is it, let's let's get into it. There's the news and there's what gets reported, and these are two totally separate entities. The news media, even the channel that broadcasts our sport, appears to loathe horse racing and are happy to kick down our doors, leaving the aunties and the animal aiders to rampage through it at will with zero censure or argument. X Twitter on Saturday night was a maelstrom of hostility to racing, mealy-mouthed apologists, knee jerk reactionaries, and well all you'd expect from an increasingly intemperate platform stuffed with folk given a few hundred bites to get their prejudices out. Thoroughly unpleasant but totally expected. Begging the question, how does racing respond to events like on Saturday? I thought ITV Racing did well under the circumstances. If they ignored the deaths and waved a metaphorical pamanda over it all, they would have been called out as ghoulish apologists. By acknowledging what occurred and the sobering effect it had on the crowd at the course, and very probably amongst the watching millions at home, they got it about right in a fast moving scenario where editorial judgment calls must have come thick and fast. And as for us, racing fans, what can we say? How do we react? Yes, instant changes for the improvement of horses' welfare can be done without working parties, reviews or focus groups. Front and centre being the abandonment of immediate post-race, long range mic interviews in favour of horses being dismounted, cooled down and walked back to the winners' enclosure. I'd go with that. You get nothing much from these interviews anyway, and I can live without anything that we do receive from these interviews if it means horses' welfare is paramount. On a deeper level though, and I'm prepared to be an easy target here, I think racing fans of whatever interest level need to ask themselves some pretty fundamental questions before they next set foot on a racetrack. I made a pact very early in my race going career. I saw that the on course death of horses was a very real probability. I left Aintree in tears the day my first national hunt racing hero, one man, died, and I had that internal dialogue asking why I could be such a callous bastard involving myself in a sport where such an event was never far away. And I came up with this. In return for them entertaining us and for me, being more than just handicap marks and speed figures, I want nothing more than the best for them in terms of attention, feed, medical care and all other aspects of sport science. Not just through their on-course careers, but post-racing through to their deaths. Anyone who can't subscribe to that should not be involved with the sport. Period. Further though, in a world of conniving politicians, boy bands, dumb media, and people largely out to spit on your good intentions, and where, for some, the biggest daily triumph is finding a sappy little vein into which to mainline some some of the good stuff, how great must it be to be fated and lionized and remembered and loved as a warrior? As a trained athlete, bred for centuries to do this one thing and be adored for it. Even if you're just a lowly ranked plaiter, you still have an owner, a trainer, a stable groom who think the world of you. How great must that be? Yeah, go on, laugh it up, but that's the way I feel about any horse that goes out there and runs for us. That's why I never feel more alive than when I'm at a race course and watch these animals run, and why it's a punch in the guts when that joy and sense of abandonment is snuffed out in a misfiring heart, or a bad stride on false ground, or a broken leg in a box on the way to or from the course. It's a risk sport, and sometimes that risk means death. But how do we live our lives before the dying? Aye, there's the rub. Okay, that's where I was a couple of years ago after the Grand National, and I forget which year it was run, but I felt the need to write that and to get that out onto the platform that I was writing for at the time. What do you think? Does that any have any resonance or traction with you? Get back to me. Let me know your thoughts on whatever platform you're listening to this on, or on x slash twitter, where my handle is at racingwatt. That's at racingwatt. Okay, I hope you enjoy the Grand National. I hope you get something from it, not just in terms of financial payback, but I hope you enjoy the spectacle for what it is nowadays. I will be watching it, momentarily interested in it, but as I say, for me it's still not the spectacle it was of old. I hope this podcast has assuaged your fears that I am a callous bastard and want to see horses die in pursuit of some notional grand spectacle. That's it's podcast over and on with, over and out. Be lucky.