Terrible that horses should die steeplechasing, what a waste of beautiful animals - but of course they probably wouldn't exist at all if they hadn't been bred for it in the first place.
And spare a thought for the jockeys. 40 mph, 10 feet up in the air and your horse gets it wrong. You're going to hit the ground big time and then be trampled by all the horses following behind. Though they did volunteer!
All that said, I still believe that the National is one of the great spectacles of all time ... the intensity and the utter chance of 4 1/2 miles and all those fences - wow!
Tony.
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