Spectator Sport: National mourning

You don’t want to sound too swivel-eyed about this, but didn’t poor doomed Synchronised look cursed from the get-go in that enthralling Grand National? How often do you see the best jump jockey on the planet being chucked to the ground like a piece of straw? And that was on the way to the start. The Cheltenham Gold Cup winner looked out of sorts when he was eventually recaptured and Tony McCoy showed him the first fence.  ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ he should have snarled at McCoy. ‘Haven’t I done enough this year?’ Could McCoy have pulled his horse, one of the favourites, in a race watched by millions? It would never happen. But did the horse want to run? I don’t think so.

The death of Synchronised and According to Pete has set off a tornado of well-meaning cant, which had already been burbling away nicely for a few hours thanks to a feisty article by television panjandrum Sir Paul Fox mourning the BBC’s effective abandonment of sport.