What new evidence has Aintree 2013 added to the Great Starting Debate?

“Thursday, 3.40  Foxhunters. Large field wandering around at the start, under no form of direction or control. Followed by the Demented Carousel and a False Start.

Eriday , 3.40 Topham. Large field wandering around at the start, under no form of direction or control, followed by Demented Carousel and two False Starts.”

Note also: before these starts, horses were assembled ninety yards behind the tapes. How on earth is a starter expected to manage a field that is ninety yards away? After the Topham a huge number of jockeys were penalised by a one-day ban. The party responsible for the disaster is not the jockeys, but the genius who presides over starting arrangements.

“Saturday, 4.15 Grand National. 40 runners.  Aimless walking as above, until the trend (probably stimulated by instructions) led to a mass move towards the far distant (ninety yards) starting gate, with the horses quietly walking in that direction and well spread out across the track. No sign of the Carousel. The next thing one saw was a perfectly satisfactory and relatively even start by 40 horses travelling at exactly the right pace and with all the dignity and restraint of seasoned hunters going about their business.”

I have never seen a better National start (and I go back quite a way). I have never seen a National start that was more conducive to good jumping.  The horses did not let the starter down, and the jockeys played their part with admirable restraint. Throughout the race the casualty rate was incomparably better than it has been in the past, and there is reason to suggest that starting in a good frame of mind is a significant advantage for both horse and rider.

Was it luck or good judgement? It is just possible that the starter gazed at the advancing cavalry, recognised that the formation appeared to award a fair chance to all and sundry, and pressed the button. Good call!

If “management” is interested in achieving perfection, it might consider the following:

1) In the case of large fields (more than 13 runners, I would suggest), all preparations should be done on the course proper (as at Aintree). Why? Because getting a large field back on to the track from a “holding area” is usually a nightmare, what with too many horses, inadequate access and the tension generated by the imminence of the start.   It is also a process which (in the case of large fields) inevitably produces unfair starts.

2) The Demented Carousel has no place in the sport of steeplechasing, or any other sport for that matter. With large fields, it should be replaced by the horses quietly walking in an anticlockwise circle (known as “taking a turn” ) while girths etc are being attended to, and for as long as is necessary to fill in any extra time before the race is due off. When start-time is imminent, there will be no difficulty in transforming “line ahead” into  something  adequately recognisable as “line abreast” as the field walks towards the starter – as happened before the Grand National.

Smaller fields could continue to use the “holding areas.” In that situation my suggestion is that all runners are given time to walk onto the course and turn towards the tapes before the actual starting procedure begins. Let us not forget that there hasn’t been any trouble, as far as I know, with smaller fields, and I see no reason why there  should be in the future.

3) Once the Aintree experience has been digested, there will be no need to take ninety backward paces. Properly managed, the job doesn’t need that  “margin for error.” And an  overstretched chain of command cannot be helpful to those doing the business on the ground.

Best wishes.

Andrew Simpson

8th April 2013