Safety-first changes at Aintree

The deaths of two horses in this year’s renewal led to huge criticism of the National, and the Aintree executive, along with the British Horseracing Authority, examined every race run over the fences at the spring meeting since 1990 – when Becher’s and Valentine’s Brook were last re-modelled.

The landing side of Becher’s Brook is again to be re-profiled, reducing the drop (the difference in height between the level of the ground on take-off and landing) from the take-off side of the obstacle from between four and five inches. The fence remains the same size, but the drop will now be around ten inches on the inside of the course moving to six inches on the outside, with the difference retained to encourage riders to spread out across the width of the fence. The first fence remains the same size, but will be levelled to remove several minor contours on the landing side to provide the flattest possible surface, with the intention of giving horses which ‘overjump’ the best possible chance to correct themselves.

The fourth fence is to be rebuilt and reduced in size by two inches to 4ft 10in, while the height of all toe boards (the orange boards at the bottom of fences to indicate the ground line) are to be increased to 14 inches, in line with ordinary fences.

It was noticed in statistical analysis that the first, fourth and Becher’s contributed to the greatest number of incidents – 21 per cent, 12.6 per cent and 21 per cent respectively of all falls since 1990.Senior jockeys and trainers, as well as the RSPCA and World Horse Welfare were consulted, with Aintree also taking into account the suggestions of many pieces of independent correspondence.