IT might not be the same extreme test of man and beast as it was in the days of old, but jumping is still the name of the game when it comes to today’s Randox Grand National.

The unique Aintree fences present a different test nowadays since a series of safety-led changes have been rolled out, with efficient and quick jumpers appearing to be at an advantage over those bold and brave types who spend longer in the air. Pint-sized Liverpool legend Tiger Roll is the perfect example of how infinite scope isn’t required to excel around the modern-day National course. That said, last year’s renewal proved that the world-famous race is still a jumping challenge, even with its modifications.

Of the 39 runners, 11 unseated their riders and four fell – a total of 38% of the field coming to grief in the jumping stakes. A year earlier, nine of the 40 unseated, three more fell and two others were brought down (37.5% of total field). The race remains unique in this sense.

The 2024 renewal could see those rates drop given the field size has been reduced from 40 to 34 runners for the first time, but for horses making their first appearance over the National fences, it remains an unknown as to how they will take to the test until they are in the thick of it.

More broadly speaking – not focusing specifically on the Aintree fences – each trainer has their own approach to schooling horses at home, and how much emphasis they place on this type of jumps training in their regimes.

An example of this is explained well in Henrietta Knight’s 2019 book The Jumping Game - How National Hunt Trainers Work and What Makes Them Tick regarding Willie Mullins’ approach to this element of training, though the champion trainer’s systems could have been adapted in ways since then.

“Less attention is given to jumping than one might imagine in Willie Mullins’ yard,” writes Knight.

“Many National Hunt trainers spend considerable time jumping their horses at home, but at Closutton there are only a few obstacles on show and frequent schooling is not high on the trainer’s list of priorities. A number of the horses that he buys have already learned to jump – either in France or in pre-training yards - whilst others have been educated in the point-to-points, which means that the majority have been well grounded before reaching his yard and he can rely on his runners to jump well on the tracks.

Varying approaches

“Certainly, horses do not forget early jumping lessons, rather like humans learning to ride a bicycle, but certain trainers spend more time than others perfecting techniques over fences… Fred Rimmell, the champion National Hunt trainer in the UK in the 1960s, was responsible for four Grand National winners but never excessively schooled his horses…

“Captain Tim Forster, who trained three Grand National winners in the 1970s and 1980s, was another who hated excessive jumping at home. If his horses safely negotiated the fences on his schooling ground at the beginning of each season, then that was enough for him and he would put a tick by their names. He would not school them again for the rest of the year unless they fell in a race.”

Mullins’ take on schooling makes for interesting reading when comparing his rate of horses falling or unseating relative to the remainder of top trainers in Ireland. Since January 2022, his faller/unseat rate of 7.3% over fences is the lowest of any of the top four trainers in the country, marginally ahead of Gordon Elliott (7.7%), Gavin Cromwell (9.8%) and Henry de Bromhead (10.2%).

For context, when stretching out to look at runners from all stables in Ireland over fences since the beginning of 2022, the average faller/unseat rate is 8.1%. Mullins and Elliott operate below that level.

As highlighted by At The Races’ Kate Tracey on Twitter, the 2024 Cheltenham Festival was the first time Mullins saddled at least one runner in each race at the meeting, and he had just one faller from 75 runners, though El Fabiolo technically came unstuck due to jumping.

Hurdling figures

As for hurdling, the trainer among the top four Irish yards with the lowest rate of unseats/fallers is Henry de Bromhead on 2.3%, closely followed by Mullins on 2.7%. There is little to separate Cromwell (3.2%) and Elliott (3.3%), with the overall average in Ireland for hurdlers coming in at 3.1%. A Grand National triumph today could put Mullins in a lively position to challenge for a first British National Hunt trainers’ championship this season, so it’s worth a brief look at the relevant rates of the leading handlers on that side of the Irish Sea.

On the whole, the rate of fallers/unseats is much lower over fences with trainers Dan Skelton (4.2%), Nicky Henderson (4.6%) and Paul Nicholls (5.2%), though the overall rate for all British chases is 5.3% – considerably down on the 8.1% in Ireland. More on that in a moment.

Over hurdles, it makes for impressive reading that Nicholls has just a 1.5% faller/unseat rate over the smaller obstacles, while his former assistant Dan Skelton comes in at 1.9% and Henderson operates at 2.1%.

As noted by Henrietta Knight in her 2019 book on the art of training: “At Paul Nicholls’ Ditcheat base, there is a great emphasis on the intensity of schooling the horses, yet his system for jumping tends to differ from other yards… In all, on this site, the horses jump 32 obstacles in one schooling session.”

Again, the overall faller/unseat rate for all British hurdle runners is 2.7% versus 3.1% in Ireland, but one wonders how much this has to do with smaller field sizes in Britain than is the case on these shores - especially in terms of the gap in rates over fences.

Bigger fields

There have been approximately 12 runners in all hurdle/chase races in Ireland since the start of 2022, compared to roughly eight in Britain. With more runners comes the potential for more incident, hence the driving force behind the reduction in Grand National runners this year.

A leading National Hunt rider with a host of experience at British and Irish tracks told me this week that the chase faller/unseat rate differential is likely linked to jockeys riding with greater space between each other in British novice chases than is the case in similar events in Ireland. Inexperienced chasers may face bigger fields on their first starts over fences in Ireland than is the case in Britain, the rider suggested. They also felt fences are softer at some British tracks than on these shores.

In recent years, we have seen belated growth in the area of data collection and processing in British and Irish racing, and the advent of Race IQ, which can detect how much ground horses lose or gain over their obstacles, is an intriguing programme to monitor.

Over the coming seasons, perhaps this system can provide comparative data on how much ground different trainers’ horses gain and lose over fences and hurdles, as opposed to strictly looking at faller and unseat rates.

In a sport where the margins between victory and defeat are extremely fine, jumping ought to have a major bearing over the course of 30 fences in today’s Aintree highlight. The National has and always will serve up magic provided it doesn’t stray any further away from its current shape.