Ill-informed extremists are hell-bent on eradicating the thoroughbred - and we cannot let them win

Four days on from an epic Grand National spectacle, another sermon on the delusions of certain animal rights groups is probably one too many but sometimes it’s good to vent.

For all of the many and varied reasons stressed in the mainstream media this week and many times here in the past, justifying the Grand National or horseracing to a cabal of extremists hell-bent on the destruction of the thoroughbred feels like a futile task. Yet we can’t stand idly by.

You would like to think that when it comes to the majority of a rational-thinking public, faced with the choice between embracing the low-level risk of equine fatalities inherent in a high-octane sporting discipline or the extinction of one of the most majestic domesticated species on earth, a utilitarian sense of the greater good will prevail, both for economic and animal welfare reasons.