Are they being paid by the bucket load?

lol, even when they're having the photo taken, he's determined to get another one over the horse

Yes - complete overkill ...

- and - perversely ...

Playing INTO the hands of the Animal Rights/Welfare Mob - by making it look as if ALL that Water was 'necessary'

Bit of an Own Goal, for me.

the photographer was the telling the bucket man to get out of the way while the winning connections were having their pic took with the horse, but he was having none of it

agree with every word, onlooker

Thought you were anticipating Wingerwangers report of successful punters.

Amazing how many spare buckets there are on course when Tommos not around.

I noticed that George, the Tall fella doing all the watering looked as if he was working to strict instuctions to get as much on the horse as possible, in fairness he done his job well imo.

As onlooker suggests, it must give the impression that there is a welfare issue and is why they're having to frantically throw buckets of water over the horse, or else it's going to collapse....Even when connections are trying to have their picture taken for their special moment in the winner's enclosure with the National hero.

I'm no racing historian, but Balabriggs is the first one I remember seeing this 'water show' put on for.

What about all the National winners prior to that, how many of them collapsed after the race?

Research on horses working in the heat considers 28-30°C and above as 'hot', but don't forget that humidity also makes a difference. High humidity reduces the effectiveness of evaporative cooling through sweating.

At the time, the 2007 National was run in a record temperature for the race, peaking at around 22 degrees Celsius on the day, and to be fair they were quick on the scene with buckets of water after the race, not that Silver Birch looked in any way distressed, but it was nothing like we saw today, when temperatures were 'only' at around 15 degrees Celsius.