Pineau De Re © Photo Healy Racing
You gotta hand it to the Aintree National when it comes to controversy: everything goes perfectly – and still the what’s-it hits the fan. This yarn even has good guys and bad guys, gallant brave and colourful jockeys sticking it to dull grey officialdom. The only problem comes from the precedent set if thirty nine riders are seen successfully managing to stick two-fingers up to the man.
There has been some unease apparently at use of words like ‘mutiny’ and ‘rebellion’ in relation to the Grand National jockeys refusal to play ball with the stewards enquiry after Pineau De Re’s success but it’s hard to quibble with the terminology. Ultimately, whatever the rights and wrongs, someone has to be in charge, and be seen to be in charge, or else its open-season. And thirty nine noses got blatantly thumbed at those in charge: mutinous in any language.
No doubt some middle-ground fudge will eventually be created in this case but precedent is a dangerous bugger, especially when lawyers get into the situation, and there was a noticeable speed in the way that most dreaded of words – solicitor – was reached for over the weekend.
There’s no doubt the starting system is hopelessly old-fashioned, and amateurish in appearance, so much so that a case can be made for even starting the one race of the year the general public pays attention to from starting stalls. Why not? And there’s no doubt public sentiment will always side with high-profile jockeys rather than anonymous bowler-hats – it’s the system, man.
But the jockeys appear a long way from blameless here. They’re the ones that reportedly lined up before time off their own bat, each one following the other in fear of missing the break, and then taking their sweet time about backing off. That might be understandable, but so was the anxiety of an under-pressure starter to be as fair as possible to everyone. And he wasn’t riding a horse.
Apparently the whole kerfuffle in the steward’s room afterwards revolved around the issue of the thirty nine jockeys objecting to the prospect of two-day suspensions for each of them. But do they really expect to get away with no penalty? Could the stewards be seen to do nothing about farcical scenes at the start of the world’s most watched steeplechase? Scenes, after all, which revolved around jockeys – on horses.
It’s hard to see how politically the BHA can afford to be seen to back down. After all what’s to stop riders in the Derby getting the hump and protesting en-masse, or any race for that matter. They might have all the right in the world on their side but the ramifications are obvious; surely obvious enough for cool-heads to prevail in this instance.
As for the race itself, it could hardly have lived up more to the National traditional with lots of incident, lots of spectacle, a challenge that both looked, and crucially was, substantive, and best of all everyone came back safe and sound.
Any fears that the jumping challenge had been diluted to such an extent that a ropey jumper like Long Run might actually be some new ideal for the great race got as far as Valentine’s first-time when he came a spectacular cropper.
As for what Barry Connell must have said to himself watching Pineau De Re – the horse he sold less than a year before – winning one of the game’s great races, it must be safe to presume the content included liberal use of a word that rhymes with duck. And after the couple of months he’s endured, the Dublin businessman must suspect any ducks he might have might be in danger of drowning. The not insubstantial consolation though is he’s well-able to afford perseverance.
The unpredictability of circumstances once solicitors get involved was at the centre of Turf Club delight following the High Court dismissal of a challenge to their ability to apply or enforce the rules of racing here. Of course the regulatory body was odds-on to win against James Lambe and Eddie O’Connell who took the case on the back of an investigation into the running of Yachvilli at Downpatrick in 2011. Courts tend to leave sports administration to sporting bodies. But you never know. There might not have been too much hollering in the Turf Club last Thursday, but no doubt a tasteful glass or two was raised in relief.
Finally, it never ceases to amaze how some people see what they want to see, especially when it comes to Ballydoyle horses. That first start of the season by Kingsbarns at Leopardstown provoked a lot of comment about how easy Joseph O’Brien supposedly was on the odds-on favourite, so much so that a glance at the replay had this corner expecting some disgraceful exhibition of jockey lethargy.
And yes O’Brien hardly cut the colt in two up the straight. But if punters really think that was a no-try, then they’ve very sensitive souls indeed, souls that really might be better served by not exposing themselves to some examples of the real thing.
Like it or not, a lot of punting comes to down to interpretation and the signals ahead of that Kingsbarns performance were hardly Sudoku-like in their interpretative complexity. Aidan O’Brien has repeatedly pointed out how a lot of the Ballydoyle string are behind some of their rivals, and in the circumstances of a first run of the season on heavy ground, you didn’t have to be Nostradamus to predict what happened.
Of course there is a bigger question in terms of how fit race-fit actually is, or should be, but punters absolving themselves of any requirement to interpret specific circumstances is bogus.
