Grand National 2012- Carnage! What did everyone think?

[Miss L Toe]

My radical idea that won't get adopted is to turn it into "lanes," like human races but with rails so that the horses cannot cross lanes, and loose horses are kept out of the way. Would have to somehow make sure they all travelled the same distance (alter the course to be a figure of 8..?)

Great stuff, I would bet on the chances of survival of the man in the white coat and flag who stood at the crossroads of you figure of eight, and stopped horses colliding.
Of course, all we need do is to run forty races over the course of a GN day, measure the times and the fastest one wins, obviously to make it fair, one jockey will have to ride all forty horses, if he unseats, the horse is caught and another jockey takes over, until he falls off, and so on: so many betting opportunities, and certainly innovative.
They don't need to waste money on all those fancy coloured silks either, lower the carbon foot print by using number cloths, like eventers wear.
Or a staggered start, with the top handicap horse starting at Aintree Car Park and the lightest in Front of the Stands. You need forty ponies to help hold the horses in their start box, so we can include the Pony Club as well, it would be a great photo opportunity if Katie Price turned up.

 

[Sherri]

Or a staggered start, with the top handicap horse starting at Aintree Car Park and the lightest in Front of the Stands. You need forty ponies to help hold the horses in their start box, so we can include the Pony Club as well, it would be a great photo opportunity if Katie Price turned up.

Interesting idea this one, a staggered start is used in Harness racing with Yards behind the gate used as a handicap... I do wonder if it would work at all in NH. but it would spread the field out for the first lap

 

[Natch]

Great stuff, I would bet on the chances of survival of the man in the white coat and flag who stood at the crossroads of you figure of eight, and stopped horses colliding.

Don't be daft, you'd have the railings in place for one direction, and then stewards to change their direction in plenty of time for the other direction!

You need forty ponies to help hold the horses in their start box, so we can include the Pony Club as well, it would be a great photo opportunity if Katie Price turned up.

The ponies could be shetlands and do their own shetland pony grand national at the same time?!

I was actually being serious in my post. Miss L Toe seems to have derailed my serious tone somewhat!

 

[Achinghips]

I really agree with you.
Back in the late 1940s people were writing about the danger commercialism was having on racehorse breeding, & back then there were other bloodlines to breed out to; now myriads of Northern Dancer, Native Dancer & Mr Prospector & little else. Native Dancer wasn't completely sound & Northern Dancer throws a lot of white legged, washy bays.
Perhaps a financial incentive for using (what minuscule) stallions from other lines might be a solution. What about an incentive to breed some proper sound jumpers? With a stallion soundness & bone scheme like the old HIS scheme, which now has more Germanic warmbloods than the proper solid thoroughbred stallions it used to promote of old.

Beautiful - the voice of reason - reasonable genetics for the job!

 

[Birker2020]

I think its the speed of the race that makes it worse. Horses will jump flat when they jump a fence at speed, any fence, whether it be steeplechase fence, or show jump or XC jump. The number of horses I think should be reduced. This year the fences were reduced in height (couple of inches). Don't really think reducing the fence height is the major problem. Horses ages need increasing. Age = experience. This year is was increased from 6 years of age to 7. I think maybe it should be looked at again. There was also some ruling about wins/places in races prior to their running in the National, which all goes to help I guess.