I WROTE a piece in this paper in October regarding the latest changes to the Grand National and welcomed the reduction in field size in particular. With the way the race played out, I’m happy to say the standing start (while not quite standing) and shorter run to the first fence were both justified.

The best horses came to the fore and any one of seven or eight horses had a winning chance at the final fence, so it’s hard to say that the 2024 Grand National wasn’t a resounding success.

And yet, the response to the race on social media from those who put jump racing as their main interest was one of doom and gloom. “This isn’t the race I remember,” “it’s a slippery slope,” “they’ve ruined it as a spectacle,” were typical of my Twitter feed.

I understand that those who grew up watching the Grand National in the 1970s and 1980s might not see the race as the same spectacle now and that is certainly true. I also hear people say that celebrating no horses falling (officially) in either the Topham or the Grand National itself is bizarre.

I was asked by an old-school acquaintance: “How can you bill it as the ultimate jumping test and have a goal that there are no fallers?” That’s a question a lot of people are asking, but not out loud, and there’s a reason for that.

Spectacle

The bottom line for those of us who prefer a 1970s’ style Grand National is that we want to see a spectacle, and a spectacle doesn’t mean 40 well-schooled horses jumping impeccably.

The first race I recall watching was the 1977 Grand National won by Red Rum, and it hooked me on the sport, but I watched the race again in its entirety during the week to assess how much better the race used to be, and I was reminded of what made that race so exciting. It wasn’t all good.

The brutal fall of Winter Rain at Becher’s is always hard to ignore, but from the moment the starter shouted an inauspicious: “can the policemen get out of the road!” before dispatching the field, that 1977 race was absolutely chaotic.

Seven horses came down at the first and another four at fence three, by which point half a dozen of the survivors, including Charlotte Brew on Barony Fort, were already more than a distance behind the front runners.

From that point on, it was a question of who might escape the carnage to win. As a result, the race was genuinely exciting and as a youngster I didn’t know whether Red Rum had to merely avoid the loose horses all around him or actually pass them to win. It was breathless stuff, but while we loved it then, it’s inconceivable that a race full of low-grade plodders, dodgy jumpers and elderly amateurs with a death wish would be considered outside of fiction. My word, it was a spectacle, but if you want that back, you need to give your head a wobble.

The Grand National isn’t a race where anything can happen, and it isn’t the most fearsome test a chaser can face.

That’s not been true for many years, as visitors to the Velká Pardubická can attest, and nor should it be. Changes made to the race since 1989 have sometimes been counterproductive, as I argued back in October, but the latest adjustments to Aintree have ensure the race will continue to attract top-class chasers and produce high-octane finishes.

It won’t ever look like it did in 1977 again, but for those who want that era back, they are welcome to it.

I DON’T suppose I’m telling fans of the jumps game anything new by praising Brighterdaysahead here, but she’s a mare I literally fell in love with when watching her win at Down Royal in November and I impetuously backed her at a big price to win the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham as I thought she was good enough to take on the best of her sex even as a raw novice.

It was bittersweet to see her turned over given the easier option of the Dawn Run Novices’ Hurdle, but that form already looks red-hot with the winner Golden Ace scoring easily at Cheltenham during the week and with both Brighterdaysahead and Jade De Grugy picking up Grade 1 wins in the interim.

Brighterdaysahead jumped indifferently at Down Royal but showed a huge engine and a languid stride that promised much more, and she has since refined her jumping skills to the point where she was gaining ground over her rivals at Aintree, and while the opposition wasn’t quite as hot as it can be in the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle, there was a strong suspicion that we were only scratching the surface of her talent.

Smitten

I don’t know why, but it’s almost always mares who I’ve got most excited about, and I can recall exactly the moment I became smitten by Dawn Run (that defeat at Aintree behind Gaye Brief), Asian Maze and Apple’s Jade as well, as I can recall the day I saw my future wife at Ascot sales and knew that was me.

It really was love at first sight, or second sight in a couple of instances, but the effect was the same - an absolute certainty that something wonderful is about to happen and a conviction that brooks no argument.

It really is the best feeling, and I’m getting it all over again. The future feels Brighter already.