Just hours away now from the greatest and most exciting horse race of them all: The Grand National. You can read my 2004 Guardian piece on why, in a globalised and increasingly homogenised world, this great race means so much, here. As to who's going to win this year's renewal, I think Himalayan Trail, Rambling Minstrel and Irish Invader should go well.
Good luck with whatever you decide to bet!
4 comments:
It's an exciting race but beware, like smoking in pubs, there are some for whom any risk or enjoyment of life is all nasty and harmful and should be stopped.
In yesterday's CiF, Andrew Tyler from Animal Aid squealed,
"The scenes at Aintree yesterday were extremely distressing. I anticipate a truly grim Saturday watching horses tumbling and somersaulting, and BBC commentators pretending we're in a Tom and Jerry cartoon where the felled characters bounce harmlessly back to their feet. At Aintree, real bones are broken and real horses die. It is an obscene and degrading spectacle. I would love tomorrow's event to be the last".
Why can't these people just bugger off ?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/03/grand-national-horse-racing
The Santa Anita Derby was on our side of the little pond this weekend, with Pioneerof the Nile overcoming his inexperience to win. Was it on your radar?
Hi Karl: as Alistair Down wrote in the Racing Post yesterday, the GN is one of the few things in British life that doesn't have its outcome controlled. It is gloriously unpredictable- as Saturday's result showed!
I couldn't disagree with Andrew Tyler more- the GN is a life-enhancing event and we'd be all the poorer if it was ever banned.
douglas: I'm afraid I've been so preoccupied by the GN that the Santa Anita Derby was off my radar.
Did you get to watch the GN in the US?
I'm sure the GN was available on some channel in the US, but it wasn't on one I get.
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