SPORTING LIFE…
England’s
painful loss of the World T20 final to the West Indies,
from a seemingly impregnable position, was extraordinary. Fascinating, though,
that the great onslaught of four sixes to win the game came from one Carlos
Brathwaite. That’s not a misprint, but a well-known Caribbean surname, at least
in Barbados.
Pleasingly, Carlos is indeed a Bajan, and no doubt there are people in West London who will claim him as kin. Last year I buried
a dear old member of St.Peter’s called Joyce Braithwaite, but when she had been
on the sick list, I had found my colleague Fr.Frank correcting her surname to
“Brathwaite”; when challenged, he had told me, “She’s from Barbados, the
surname is Brathwaite!” So, one day when I was taking her communion, I asked Joyce
about it. Which was it? I asked. So she told me, “Back in Barbados, I was Brathwaite, but when I came to England they wrote it down as
Braithwaite, so that’s what I’ve been. I don’t care!” I suspect she was less
bothered because there had once been a Mr Brathwaite (long gone). This is a
reminder of the time before surnames settled down, when spellings were much
more free. The only Brathwaite in the Dictionary of National Biography is a
seventeenth century poet, one Richard Brathwaite (apparently the author of the
bit of verse which historians cite about the Puritan in Banbury who hanged his cat on Monday for
killing a mouse on Sunday). I suspect that historians of Barbados would be able to tell us that some
Brathwaite was a plantation owner in the seventeenth or eighteenth century,
because of course that is where so many Caribbean
surnames came from. Slaves were given the surname of their owner. Slave-names they're sometimes called. I’ve never
met a Caribbean Everett, and I rather hope I don’t.
THE GRAND NATIONAL
One of the more irritating features of the lead-up to this
year’s Grand National was the repeated assertion from seemingly intelligent
people that this was the best field ever in the race. No. It. Wasn’t. I suppose
you can say it was the field with the narrowest range of weights, and therefore
was composed of 39 horses of a closer standard than ever before, and that the
top weights were good horses, so the race was generally of quite a high
standard. But the best? No. Certainly not. For one thing, that narrow range of
quality is partly the result of restricting the number of runners to forty
(sixty-six is the record) and also of lowering the top weight to 11 stone 10
pounds. I agree there were two good horses at the top of the handicap, in Many
Clouds (past National winner, and Hennessy Gold Cup) and Silviniaco Conti (twice
King George winner), and fair enough, Pineau de Re, past winner, didn’t get a
run. But Pineau de Re didn’t get in because he’s no good; he never was. And
frankly, a race won by a maiden, with a thirteen-year old in third, doesn’t
actually look like the best ever (even if Rule The World was a very high-class
maiden). Not the best ever, definitely. Not even the best in my lifetime: in
that category I think I’d vote for 1973 or 1975.
Obviously 1973 was Crisp (won a Queen Mother Champion Chase,
placed in a Gold Cup) and Red Rum (not yet a triple National winner), but the
field also included a dual Gold Cup winner in L’Escargot (who finished third),
and Gold Cup-placed and Hennessy-winning Spanish Steps (fourth) and a Whitbread winner in Grey
Sombrero. Red Rum won in record time, as well. Arguably, though, 1975 was
better, when L’Escargot beat Red Rum (by now a dual National winner, and winner
of a Scottish National) with Spanish Steps third, and another former Gold Cup
(and King George) winner The Dikler fifth. Also in the field that day were Royal Relief (Queen
Mother Champion Chase) and April Seventh (Hennessy Gold Cup), not to mention
future National and Scottish National winners in Rag Trade and Barona. So I
think that’s a bit thicker in quality than last Saturday.
But in truth the best ever has to have been 1934, the year
that Golden Miller won. Golden Miller won five Cheltenham Gold Cups, but hated
Aintree. In 1934 he came to Aintree having already won three Gold Cups, the
last a fortnight earlier, and he wasn’t even top weight! That was Gregalach,
the winner in 1929 and second in 1931, who carried 12 stone 7 pounds. Also
giving Golden Miller weight was the magnificent Thomond II, with whom he had
regular duels, who had been second in the 1933 Gold Cup. Nor was Golden Miller
favourite, that was the previous year’s runner-up, Really True. Also in the
field were the 1932 winner Forbra, and Delaneige, fourth in 1933 after running
third in the Gold Cup. Back in the thirties the jumping calendar was very
different, and the National was so much more valuable than any other race that
the best horses did tend to compete in a way they haven’t done in modern times.
It’s hard to compare achievements, but that field looks very strong, and the
best horses came home in front, in record time. It’s worth pointing out that
the fences were a lot harder back then, tougher than in the 1970s, and a world
away from today.
My particular beef about the Grand National is that the race
has been fundamentally altered by making the course easier, in the interest of
safety. Ironically more horses were killed after the safety modifications,
because making the fences easier meant that the horses went faster, and as so
often, speed kills. There have also been more collisions, because there is no
longer a clear easy way and a difficult way to approach the fences. The
spectacle remains the same, forty horses jumping slightly outlandish obstacles,
but because jumping is no longer the most important factor, the race has become
much more open, and much more ordinary. Prior to the modifications of the last
few years you could normally narrow down the possible winners to a short list
of good jumpers who were genuine stayers.
What am I to say about the Grand National and animal
cruelty? Well, I am sickened by the sight of a horse being killed, but it
doesn’t only happen there. And the fact is that the horses race and jump
because it is in their nature; inasmuch as it isn’t anthropomorphising, it is
plain that (at least some) horses jump because they enjoy it. You only had to
watch Hadrian’s Approach on Saturday, who had decanted his jockey at the first
fence but carried on, having a whale of a time, jumping the fences when he
could have run round them, to see the truth of that. So banning horse racing is
not so obviously good for horses’ welfare, when they enjoy it. And if it didn’t
exist, would the horses exist? No, plainly not. Is existence better than
non-existence? Yes, manifestly. But, obviously, humans have a grave
responsibility for the way we treat other sentient creatures which are under
our control. I don’t think though, that we need say that it’s immoral to use
animals for something as trivial as sport. Not least because those animals have
a good life as their object, unlike those farm animals whose death is their
object. We don’t have to eat meat, we choose to, and so I don’t think we can be
too pious about animals in sport.
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