How important is the Grand National for horse racing as a whole?
It’s amazingly important. It’s one of the key events of the year as far as horse racing is concerned, and a shop window for our sport. It’s one of the few occasions when virtually everyone in the country is aware of horse racing. It gives racing a a chance to get more people interested. Every newspaper goes mad on the National, with special supplements and coverage building up throughout the week. The hope is more people will latch onto the sport because of that. Should last year’s race have gone ahead in such soggy conditions? It’s debatable. Most people inside racing are fairly convinced it was okay to go ahead. I suspect the race might have been abandoned if it hadn’t been for the foot-and-mouth crisis which had earlier led to the Cheltenham Festival being called off. Racing needed the Grand National to go ahead. There were no deaths – sometimes when the ground is firm in comparison then horses are more likely to do themselves damage. And the race became another amazing episode in t
