At some stage of an individual’s infatuation with horse racing, the sport’s long and storied history usually adds to the allure.
Football/soccer and rugby union, as we know them as organised sports, trace their roots to the 19th Century. Meanwhile, thoroughbred horse racing goes back even further: the world’s oldest classic, the St Leger, dates from 1776.
The most famous race of all, the Grand National, started in the 1830's, with John Pinfold in the superb book Gallant Sport making a compelling case for The Duke in 1836 having been the first winner rather than Lottery three years later.
What these sports, and many others, have in common is that they have evolved over time, usually for the better. Modern football and rugby are much better spectacles, as, arguably, is modern horse racing.
Those early Grand Nationals featured solid brick walls, ploughed fields and smallish fields, all of which have long since disappeared. The 1947 Grand National saw 57 horses line up; the 1929 one had 66!
Modifications have occurred quite often over the years, the most recent being a reduction in maximum field size from 40 to 34 prior to last year’s contest. Across the sport of steeplechasing, fewer runners mean fewer “incidents” and chaos in percentage terms on average.
That latest Grand National featured four unseated runners, no fallers in the race itself, and 21 finishers (the most since the same number in 2005), with seven pulling up. The modern Grand National is less about jumping and luck, and more about ability and stamina.
The winning jockey in the first Grand National was Captain Becher – a rambunctious character, renowned for sheltering in the Brook at the fence that now bears his name – and one suspects he might have baulked at another modern development: the pre-race safety briefing for the riders.
I provided the data and evidence for one recent briefing, framed as “How To Win The Grand National”, and some of what was therein should be of interest to punters and to the wider public.
First, the biggest fundamental change in recent years was the modification to fences prior to the 2013 running, with the cores of the majority of the 16 obstacles being replaced with more forgiving plastic.
The effect can be seen by measuring the non-completion rates on a by-fence basis. This is best done by recording the number of horses that attempted to jump a given fence, and the number that succeeded or failed. That is, you need to strip out previous fallers and pulled-ups etc.
This is how the figures look in the dozen or so years before and since that major change.
The incidence of non-completions by way of falling/unseating has dropped significantly overall and particularly at some of the course’s previous accident “black spots”.
Twenty-one of the 30 fences have seen a reduction in non-completion percentages, notably at Becher’s itself, at which roughly one in 14 of the remaining runners used to depart and at which now only about one in 62 do.
This has had a small displacement effect, with a higher proportion of horses involved later in the race. The most difficult fences are now, in order: the first fence (one in 21 don’t complete); the Chair (one in 24); and Canal Turn for the first time (one in 26).
Overall, the non-completion rates through falling/unseating have more than halved. At the same time, non-completion by way of pulling up has increased from an average of 7.2 to 11.2.
Jumping is less the be-all and end-all in the Grand National than it was, but many of the worst incidents in Grand Nationals over the years have been down to bad luck rather than bad jumping. A smaller field reduces crowding and should reduce bad luck, without eliminating it.
Another important aspect is pace and positioning. Modern Grand Nationals are quicker earlier than older ones, despite increased watering, with the average time for leaders from the first fence to first Becher’s dropping from 68.0s in the 1960s/1970s to 66.8s of late (a difference of about six lengths).
The first fence was moved about 60 yards nearer to the start before last year’s race and the start itself was moved about 85 yards away from the stands before 2013 (the rest of the difference in race distance is down to historical mismeasurement: the modern Grand National was never over quite as far as advertised).
The following tables show how positioning has played out in recent Nationals.
A typical winner, second and third have been just ahead of mid-division (of those remaining) at first Becher’s and again at the Water Jump, which is at roughly halfway.
Only one first-three finisher has been in the first three at Becher’s on the opening circuit (Magic of Light, runner-up to Tiger Roll in 2019), and the outcomes for front-runners at that stage have been dismal: more than half have pulled up and none has finished closer than fourteenth.
Positioning is more important than usual in a race like the Grand National, with its big fields and potential for crowding and carnage if not in the clear, but pace nearly always matters more. Some jockeys still get a rush of blood to the head early on. Maybe, with greater feedback and growing evidence, that too will change.
Quality has come to the fore more of late, if less so in terms of winners – older Grand Nationals had plenty of legendary ones – than placed horses. Each of the last six editions has had one horse running to a rating in excess of 160 on my figures while less than a quarter did in the 13 years prior to the major fence modifications.
The average margin to the third horse has almost halved since those changes. Whereas a good number of horses turning in comparatively ordinary performances used to plug on into a place by virtue of surviving, nowadays almost none do.
Class and stamina is what really counts in a modern Grand National, while jumping and luck is still important, if nothing like as much as they once were.
Effective judgement of pace matters, also, with recent races favouring a more patient approach than might once have been the case. The Grand National is still a formidable test of jockeyship, of that there should be no doubt.
I pinned my colours to the Beauport mast some time ago, after he ran away with the Berkshire National at Ascot in November, and, following a couple of placed efforts in good hurdles since, I see no reason to desert him now. He has many of the attributes needed, though his natural exuberance may need to be reined in on the first circuit by jockey Sam Twiston-Davies.
More than anything, though, I am hoping that the great race – due off at 4pm on Saturday – makes headlines for the right reasons again this year. Good luck all!
