The Grand National

Rule the World - Rule the Irish. Liverpool the second Capitol of Ireland and the home of the Grand National was taken over as usual by the Irish horse racing fraternity. The owner of the winner, Michael O'Leary the controversial  owner of Ryan Air, the trainer and the jockey were part of that breed of people who seem competent to compete with the Arab Sheikhdoms and their billions in the business of breeding and training these thoroughbred horses. 

It's a world we ordinary people don't quite understand. The investment and the risk, the shady characters the dubious business of betting, the money thrown away on a dream of the colour of a jockeys shirt. 

Having had the radio on as I arrived back home prior to the race the sentiment was anti racing and the harm done to these magnificent animals. The tragic statistic that over the last nine years a horse has had to be put down due to a fall on the track, one horse every second day. One thousand nine hundred horses have died as a result of falls in the last nine years on British/Irish courses. A terrible statistic and one which seems to have no effect on the appetite of the race goers and the horse racing industry.

I heard many shrill voices calling for it to be banned and how cruel it was for the animals to have to perform with a human being on its back, jumping fences which although greatly reduced these days are still a tremendous imposition especially for a tiring horse over two miles. And yet as the race unfurled and jockeys were going down like ninepins (who cares about the jockeys) the jockey-less horses continued to race and jump the fences. At one stage the race was led by a horse who was going like the clappers, it hadn't seemed to have cross the horses mind that this was cruel, and that it needed a jockey to goad him on, the horse was in his/element and proof that breeding is everything.

From the person who joins the workforce at fifteen, out of bed by six and through the factory gates by seven, nine hours a day, five and more days a week with three weeks of for a trip to the seaside for the minimum wage, perhaps the women and it was largely women who were complaining about the ill treatment as they saw it for the horses, should turn their gaze to the inhumanity of a Bangladesh sweat shop or the miner, boilermaker, ship steward, shelf packer since there is much human misery inflicted on other humans than in a stable.