Talk:Grand National

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Horse racing C‑class Top‑importance

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Grand National was nominated as a Sports and recreation good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (July 26, 2009). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

Fatalities

I notice that any mention of the fatalities, both equine and human have been removed from the article. A section was created on this based on the individual reports of every race from 1836 as reported at the time in the Liverpool Mercury, Bells Life, The Time and Sporting Life record the deaths of 80 horses and 1 rider since 1836. Each of these was documented in the article and can all be verified against the newspapers reports of each race. It has been stated that the article has been removed for the lack of a source. Each individual newspaper, page and date can be documented if necessary. However its removal does seem to have been motivated by a desire to brush this element of the race under the carpet somewhat as a similar section, sourced from the same material regarding the number of jockeys to have competed and those who have had more then thirteen rides without victory has been allowed to remain. The removal of the fatalities section turns this entire article from an unbiased encyclopedic article to a biased one. I believe the section on fatalities should be restored, not least to honour the eighty documented horses and one rider who have died in the race. Captainbeecher (talk) 20:13, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I stumbled across this article this afternoon whilst looking for something else (as you do) and I too was suprised that very little mention is made of equine fatalities, especially given that the race is always a focus for animal rights protesters. Assuming the info mentioned by Captainbeecher above is referenced, I see no reason why it should be left out, especially given WP's goal of remaining unbiased. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 12:57, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]