Oh FFS, what melodramatic crap.  Look, I'm a soft, wet, small-l liberal, leftie, anti-hunting, card carrying, active, pinko, democratic republican socialist and reading that made me liquid burp it is so over the top.

Yes there will absolutely have to be changes for the simple reason that the changes they already made have made it WORSE!  But save us from this sentimental bullsh1t.  We live in a country where animals are a)property and b)killed for food.  We have ended the nastiness of killing for sport, that it a whole world away from accidental and undesirable death from a sport where the sole aim is to win.  Do they think the connections wanted their horses to die?  It is impossible to eliminate risk from any equine sport, to pretend otherwise is utterly disingenuous.

What a cringeworthy piece of emotional claptrap. My favourite bit is "Holly, my youngest at ‘sweet 17′". He should be reported to the NSPCC for publicly embarrassing his poor kid, rather than being allowed to run the the RSPCA.

It is an embarassing and melodramatic piece which is a shame becuase some of his suggestions are sensible and should be considered (fewer runners, safer landing areas, more stewards to catch lose horses, less fallers, better starting system and automatic withdrawal of bolting horses). However the way the piece is presented means the author lacks credibility.

National is the best race there is, lets cut out the cr*p. Sad to see horses but come on leave it alone. Newspapers full of it on Saturday morning with all the pull-outs to increase sales and then bites the hand that feeds it on Sunday morning

Well said Duncster. Media are the biggest hypocrites.

I know their are disagreements about changing the race,but i do think we all want the same end result and thats the future of horseracing is secure.
I honestly think that those that actually think we can carry on as we are,are basically living in cloud cuckoo land.
Pressure builds and builds and something normally gives,and whether we like it or not,whether we think it right or not- what we like or think is not really the point,the point is that we are nearing the time,or probably at the time when racing simply has to be seen to address concerns about the welfare of the horses involved in our great sport-even if many in the sport disagree-the sport and its future is far more important than individual opinions from us fans.

If only that were true

GCW - name recognition and media coverage. I'd turn your question round and ask how many people do you hear argue the Scots/Irish/Welsh Nationals should be run over Aintree style fences?

In any case, do we (as people who care about the future survival of jump racing) really care if it only stays of interest to all year round punters? My worry is that the National course is a liability for jump racing as a whole because it causes so many injuries and is in the public eye, for the sake of only 5 races per season. If the National course can't be made much safer I'd give serious consideration to running the race over the park fences. I realise that puts me in a small minority on this forum and perhaps in the country, but there you go.

That's a fair point Roobuck but it's much less likely. Over the last 20 years there is a 2% chance that a horse will be killed if it runs in the National (5% in the last 2 renewals but that's probably a freak). On the other hand there were 3 horses killed in 26 races at the Festival (excluding the cross country, which has problems of its own because of the lack of irrigation) and 1 in 20 races at Aintree. I'm also not sure that saying we should do something very dangerous to divert attention from something quite dangerous is a persuasive or sustainable argument.

I do realise though that scrapping the National fences will automatically make park steeplechases the next target of the activists - though it's my belief that "normal" NH racing (3000 races per year) is safe enough to be justified by the industry it supports, but racing on the National course (5 races per year) is not.

What to do with the National is a very tough question for the industry - 20 reasonable people could come up with 20 reasonable, but different, answers.

They'd have to reduce the field to whatever the saftey limit is for the Mildmay at Aintree, and there'd be no reason to compress the handicap.

I'm not arguing that the race should be run over the Mildmay, but that it should be considered if the National course can't be made significantly safer. In that situation another option would be to scrap the race altogether (name and all). I'm not in favour of that but I firmly believe everything should be up for discussion. If there were any easy, or right, answers they'd have been done already.

Sorry, I hadn't realised that's what you were thinking about. I was assuming the race would be switiched to the existing park course. They could do what you suggest - but now we're just discussing possible details of the race following a hypothetical radical change.

In that circumstance I agree with the point you made at 14.48 that horses could still be in significant danger. No one would know until the race had been run a few times, which may make it a particularly undesirable approach to the problem.

All said, we're a very long way from what we're talking about actually happening. I assume there'll be several more years of tinkering with the National course/fences/regulations before anything more dramatic (like a new course or park fences) is tried.

What about move The Gold Cup to Saturday (which is inevitable anyway)make that the showcase event of the year. Put the National over the normal fences 25 runners. I emailed RUK last night said Ive been following racing 37 years and after this National I don't think I can bare another. I have owned horses,bred a horse and basically put thousands into this sport one way or another. I said it is a cruel race and unacceptable. The response from Hannity was "maybe you're in the wrong sport and 3 horses died in Dubai 2 at Sedgefield where do you draw the line"? So he justified death with death. It is that sort of attitude that is  turning me off this sport. I've not had one NH bet since Saturday.

Chapman last Sunday was nothing short of a disgrace.