Even many long-standing racing fans found this Grand National an uncomfortable watch

It has always been something of a double-edged sword that, of the 10,000 horse races in Britain each year, the only one that gets the entire nation interested is so unlike the other 9,999.

The Grand National’s extended distance, the number and nature of its fences and its 40-runner field are all unique, and have contributed to its immense popularity throughout a near 200-year history. But the characteristics that make it the most exciting and unpredictable spectacle of the racing year also ensure that it is the riskiest too for both horses and riders.

As the British Horseracing Authority has been at pains to point out in recent days, the overall rate of fatal injuries in racing has dropped by around a third, from 0.3 per cent to 0.21 per cent, over the last 20 years, following significant investment, research and effort by the regulator.

The rate in jump racing, however, is 0.43 per cent, but in the last 10 runnings of the Grand National, including six in a row between 2013 and 2018 in which there were no fatalities, it stands at 1.12 per cent. That is the lowest 10-year rate on record and follows significant changes to the fences and course, but is still more than double that for jump racing as a whole.

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Hill Sixteen, who fell at the first, was the fourth fatality in three years. He was one of five horses to exit at the first fence, while three more went at the second.

As a result, there were three horses galloping loose at the head of the field, and there could easily have been a pile-up when all three decided to run out, in different directions, at Valentine’s, the ninth fence. As it turned out the only casualty was Lifetime Ambition, who unseated Sean O’Keeffe as a loose horse veered right in front of him. The other two, meanwhile, crashed through a rail on the left and started running along the inside.

In all, 12 of the 14 departures at fences occurred during a frantic and chaotic first circuit that even many long-standing racing fans may have found to be an uncomfortable watch.

It is feasible that the 15-minute delay to the race as protesters were removed from the course contributed to the frenetic atmosphere during the first half of the race, though very difficult to say for sure. But there was a definite sense of urgency about getting the race under way, with both the parade and the national anthem abandoned, and the run to the first felt more urgent than ever.

And if it was an unsettling spectacle for some of us inside the racing bubble, consider how it must have looked to the millions of once-a-year viewers. The National is their only, annual point of contact with the sport, and from the average sofa it probably looked more like devil-may-care bedlam than organised horse racing.

It is a point that campaigners such as those from the group Animal Rising understand only too well. No statistic about the extremely low fatality rate in racing as a whole, or BHA statement about the efforts being made to reduce it still further, stands much chance of cutting through when viewers with no more than a fleeting interest in racing know, or suspect, that they have just watched a horse lose its life.

The three-day National meeting as a whole, during which three horses suffered fatal injuries, will, as always, be the subject of a thorough review by the BHA. There could, perhaps should, be some more tweaks to the start, in an attempt to reduce the hectic nature of the early stages.

[ Animal rights protesters delay start of Aintree Grand National ]

But the regulator may well have been a little disturbed to hear the RSPCA, an animal welfare organisation, using the language of an animal rights group such as Animal Rising in a statement on Sunday. The BHA, it said, should conduct an urgent review “so that we never again exit a ‘festival of racing’ with three dead horses.” And since even the most unlikely of random events will inevitably occur in clusters at some stage, a “never again” guarantee is clearly impossible.

Animal Rising exploited the National’s immense public profile on Saturday in an attempt to advance an agenda that also includes an end to all meat and dairy farming in the UK – an aim that can be fairly said to have very limited support in the wider population.

The group failed to stop the National going ahead, but by most measures will feel that it had a successful week. The delay to the race, the 100-plus arrests of AR members and the death of Hill Sixteen led the evening news bulletins, and they will assuredly return for another go next year. But if it has also pushed the RSPCA a little further towards an animal rights-based approach to racing, it might just consider that the biggest win of all. – Guardian