National disgrace that was sickening to watch

SCANDALOUS, abominable and horrible... I’m talking about this year’s Grand National.

Tom Richmond is totally wrong when he says: “Both tragedies could have happened on any racecourse” (Yorkshire Post, April 16) as very few equine casualties occur in flat racing.

A further abomination surely was in the media and television coverage when describing the debacle. The presenters on BBC said that the horses died – yes they did, after a vet took a gun and put it at the horses’ heads and pulled the trigger.

Let’s not dress this up, the carnage during the last two years has been sickening in the extreme. At one time, it was said that a horse was man’s best friend. Probably still is... it’s just a pity that mankind has gone to the dogs.

From: Brian Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

I SHARE William Snowden’s contempt for the “reckless fool” who disrupted the Boat Race (Yorkshire Post, April 16).

Whatever we think of the Boat Race, for some of its contestants it represents the pinnacle of their sporting career. They are in it as a result of years of sacrifice and seven months of physical agony.

That their opportunity should be so blithely snatched away shows an appalling lack of empathy, nay, humanity on the part of the cowardly saboteur. If he had thrust himself into the heart of the Grand National field instead we might at least have been impressed by his courage.

It is to be hoped for his sake that some of the Oxford crew never catch up with him. Some people just don’t get sport do they?