Fehily warns of the dangers in tinkering too much with National
Neptune Collonges edged out Sunnyhillboy to win the race after the closest-ever Grand National finish, but the showpiece was marred by the deaths of Gold Cup winner Synchronised and According To Pete.
Noel Fehily was on board State Of Play on Saturday but his race ended prematurely when the 12-year-old fell at the fifth fence and brought down Rare Bob and Chicago Grey.
Fehily broke his leg in the incident but insists the criticism the race has received in some quarters in recent days has been excessive.
‘‘That’s rubbish,’’ Fehily said when asked if he agreed with those who argue the race is too dangerous.
‘‘Any competitive sport is dangerous. Whatever it is, if you play it competitively there is danger and there are injuries.
‘‘What happened to Synchronised was a freak accident. When he fell at Becher’s, he didn’t get hurt. He got up and galloped way and jumped four fences afterwards and then got hurt galloping loose. Any horse can get hurt galloping around a field loose. That had nothing to do with the Grand National. It could have been a hurdle race that he fell in. It was just a freak accident.
‘‘The same with According To Pete. He could have fallen over hurdles. He didn’t even fall. He got brought down so he could have got brought down over hurdles. It’s just one of those things.
‘‘People are just jumping on the bandwagon now about the National. It’s had bad publicity over the last couple of years and everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon. Everyone is just getting carried away. It’s being blown out of proportion.
‘‘I’ve been in hospital since the National and there are plenty of people around me with broken legs, who’ve come off motorbikes, but you wouldn’t hear people talking about banning motorbikes.’’
In the aftermath of Saturday’s race there have been calls for the fences and the size of the field to be reduced to improve safety.
Fehily concedes there will be changes but has believes radical changes could ‘ruin’ the race.
‘‘There are bound to be changes,’’ he said. ‘‘No matter what race, be it a handicap chase around Taunton or Huntington, if there are fallers it will be looked into as to why they fell. They’re always trying to make it safer for horses, no matter what the race.
“It’s the same for the National. They will look in to it. But don’t get carried away and try and change things too much. It’s the world’s greatest race and if you have to make too many changes it’s going to ruin the race.’’
Fehily is also of the view that reducing the size of the Aintree fences may not be the wisest of moves.
‘‘I’m not sure making the fences smaller is the way forward because they’ll build up too much speed. They obviously will look at it and try and make it a bit safer but they’ll never be able to erase the whole element of danger. There is always going to be danger.’’
Fehily left hospital yesterday after going under the knife on Sunday and hopes to be back in action in three months time.
‘‘I’m going the right way,” he said. ‘‘It’s all gone well. Touch wood, I believe it’s going the right way. It’s a broken tibia. It will be a couple of months so I need to stay as still as I can, not put any weight on it. You’re looking at about three months altogether which will take me to the middle of the summer sometime.’’
Explaining how he and State Of Play came to grief, Fehily said: ‘‘He just rubbed the top of the fence and gave me a bit of a nudge and gravity took over. It wasn’t the fall that did the damage. It was the horse that was galloping from behind. I think it was Rare Bob galloped over the top of me and that’s what did the damage.
Winning jockey Daryl Jacob paid Fehily a visit on Saturday, an act of kindness the Castletownkinneigh man appreciated.
‘‘He popped in on the way home to see. For him to win it was brilliant obviously and it was good of him to pop in.’’
