El Caballo y la Leyenda: La Gran Carrera

Each fence has a history, almost a personality.

A ver, los obstáculos son muy peligrosos.

Well, the obstacles are very dangerous.

Los caballos caen mucho.

The horses fall a lot.

They do.

And that's one of the real tensions around this event, and it has been for decades.

Animal welfare groups have campaigned against it for years.

Horses do die at Aintree, not every year, but it happens.

And the race organizers have made changes, they've modified fences, they've reduced the field size.

But the essential danger is still part of the appeal, which is a complicated thing to sit with.

La verdad es que el deporte y el peligro van juntos.

The truth is that sport and danger go together.

No es fácil.

It's not easy.

No, it's not.

And it's not a debate that resolves neatly.

I've sat in press boxes watching sports where people got badly hurt and the crowd roared anyway, and you ask yourself what we're actually celebrating.

But let me come back to I Am Maximus, because this horse's story is worth telling properly.

Bueno, el caballo tiene diez años.

Well, the horse is ten years old.

Es mayor para la carrera.

That's older for this race.

Ten years old, which in horse racing years is getting on a bit.

The horse is trained by Willie Mullins, who is Irish, and ridden by Paul Townend, also Irish.

And this is a point worth making.

The Grand National is English in name and location but it has always had a deep Irish dimension.

Mira, Irlanda tiene muchos caballos buenos.

Look, Ireland has many good horses.

Es famosa por eso.

It's famous for that.

Famous is an understatement.

The Irish breeding industry is world class.

The grass in parts of Ireland has this particular limestone-rich quality that is apparently extraordinary for developing strong bones in horses.

People say that like it explains everything, and maybe it does.

Es que la relación entre Irlanda y los caballos es muy especial.

The relationship between Ireland and horses is very special.

It is.

And when an Irish horse wins the Grand National, which happens a lot, there's a particular quality to the celebration.

I remember being in Dublin once on Grand National weekend, and the pubs were something else entirely.

The extraordinary thing is how personal people make it, even when they've never met the horse, never been to Aintree.

Bueno, el deporte une a las personas.

Well, sport unites people.

Es muy poderoso.

It's very powerful.

Incredibly powerful.

And I think this is the thing about the Grand National that goes beyond sport.

It is one of those events that creates a shared national experience in a country that has fewer and fewer of them.

Everyone watches it at the same time, everyone gasps at the same fences, everyone checks their betting slip at the same finish line.

A ver, en España el fútbol hace eso.

Well, in Spain football does that.

Todos miran el partido juntos.

Everyone watches the match together.

Football in Spain, cricket in India, sumo in Japan.

Every culture has one of these things where the sport stops being the point.

The point is the gathering, the shared attention, the feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself.

The Grand National does that for Britain, and it does it in a very specifically British way, which is slightly chaotic, slightly uncomfortable, and utterly beloved.

La verdad es que la cultura es el deporte también.

The truth is that culture is sport too.

No son cosas separadas.

They are not separate things.

No, they're really not.

And I think what's interesting about I Am Maximus winning a second time is that it adds a new chapter to a story people already love.

Red Rum retired in 1978 and literally lived the rest of his life in a stable next to the course at Aintree.

People came to visit him.

He became a monument.

Mira, Red Rum es como una estatua para los ingleses.

Look, Red Rum is like a statue for the English.

Un símbolo.

A symbol.

There is actually a statue of Red Rum at Aintree.

So that's literal.

And now I Am Maximus is being talked about in the same breath, which means we are watching history be made in real time.

That's rare in sport.

Usually you only recognize the historic moment in retrospect.

Es que los deportes tienen su propia historia.

Sports have their own history.

Sus propios héroes.

Their own heroes.

Their own mythology, really.

And horse racing mythology is particularly rich because the hero isn't human, which changes the emotional dynamic in a fascinating way.

You can't interview the horse.

The horse can't retire and write a book.

The horse just runs.

Bueno, el caballo no sabe que es famoso.

Well, the horse doesn't know it's famous.

Es inocente.

It's innocent.

That's a beautiful way to put it.

And I think that innocence is part of why people project so much onto these animals.

The horse doesn't feel the pressure.

The horse doesn't read the newspapers.

The jockey does, the trainer does.

But the horse is just doing what it was born to do, which is run very fast over very frightening obstacles.

Mira, el jinete también es importante.

Look, the jockey is also important.

Paul Townend es muy bueno.

Paul Townend is very good.

Paul Townend is genuinely one of the best jump jockeys in the world right now.

He's been champion jockey in Ireland multiple times.

And the relationship between a jockey and a horse, especially over a course like Aintree, is something that people who know racing talk about almost mystically.

They have to trust each other completely.

La verdad es que el jinete y el caballo son un equipo.

The truth is that the jockey and the horse are a team.

Trabajan juntos.

They work together.

A team where one member weighs about half a ton and can't be given a tactical briefing before the race.

I find that genuinely remarkable.

The jockey has to read the horse's mood on the day, feel how it's responding, make decisions in fractions of a second at thirty miles an hour.

It's extraordinary athleticism.

A ver, el jinete es pequeño pero muy fuerte.

Well, the jockey is small but very strong.

No es fácil su trabajo.

Their job is not easy.

Not easy at all.

Jockeys live under severe weight restrictions.

They train constantly, they eat very little, and they take falls that would put most people in hospital for months.

It's one of the most physically demanding lives in professional sport, and it gets almost none of the attention it deserves because people are watching the horse.

Es que hay mucho sacrificio detrás del deporte.

There is a lot of sacrifice behind sport.

La gente no lo ve.

People don't see it.

Look, that's true of almost every sport.

The visible moment is the race, the goal, the finish line.

The invisible thing is the years of work that make that moment possible.

And in horse racing it's doubled because you have a human athlete and an animal athlete, both of whom have been trained for years for a race that lasts about nine minutes.

Bueno, nueve minutos de carrera y años de preparación.

Well, nine minutes of racing and years of preparation.

Es increíble.

That's incredible.

It is.

And I think that disproportion, the years versus the minutes, is part of what makes people care so intensely.

All of that preparation compressed into one run.

And if the horse falls at the first fence, which happens, then everything collapses in an instant.

There's a brutality to it that makes the triumph, when it comes, feel real.

Mira, cuando ganas después de mucho trabajo, la alegría es grande.

Look, when you win after a lot of work, the joy is great.

Enormous.

And I'll end with this.

I Am Maximus winning a second Grand National is going to be remembered in Britain for a long time.

Not because of the prize money, not because of the betting odds, but because it connects to something older.

People want their heroes to return.

They want the story to continue.

That's not sport, that's culture.

La verdad es que el deporte y la cultura son la misma cosa.

The truth is that sport and culture are the same thing.

Siempre.

Always.