THE Grand National seems an eternity ago already as do my words in the last column about the Channel 4 programme. It was excellent except for immediately after the race, when the winner Many Clouds was looking very distressed. Despite numerous cameras in every corner of Aintree, the programme held the image for so long that I rather wonder if the director was not secretly hoping for a full fatality live on television.

Immediate post-race jockey interviews are seldom that interesting and while Leighton Aspell is a wonderfully accomplished jockey, he does not strike me as being in line to take over from Graham Norton and I felt that his interview could have been cut short without major loss of content.