TV View/Mary Hannigan/Apology to Mick O'Connell: "So Scu," said Clare Balding, "what's your tip?" "Monty's Pass is going to win," said Peter Scudamore emphatically. "He stays, he's got speed, and he hasn't got too much weight." As if any of these factors mattered a jot in the Grand National.

What you're looking for, of course, is a wacky story or a nice set of colours (matching, preferably) or a cute name. Like The Bunny Boiler, our tip. Why? Because any horse named after that scene in Fatal Attraction has got to be worth a punt.

But, Bunny Boiler and his jockey parted company at the first fence and there ended our race, and Monty's Pass won, largely because he stays, he's got speed, and he hadn't got too much weight. Class outed, and that simply confirmed to us that these are changed times, that the National isn't the race it used to be, that horse racing needs to have a good look at itself.

This view was supported by Ginger McCain, the man trained by Red Rum to National glory on three occasions. Ginger was visited by a BBC crew for Friday night's National preview. He reminisced about his glory days and alleged that horse racing today is less than manly. He even detected a touch of the Graham Nortons about it.

"I say, being old and rather long in the tooth, that nowadays you go in the weighing room and it's like a bloody poof's paradise, they're all there on their bloody telephones and powdering their noses and their bums and one thing or another."

"Just after the war," he continued, "you'd go into a weighing room and it was like going into a gym, there was 'masculine-ness' and the smell of sweat and men and there would be a pee-bucket in the corner and it never got emptied until it was full, it might stand there 12 or 18 months."

While he pined for the days of stagnant urine Ginger recalled another of his Aintree memories. "We just walked down to have a look at the Chair after the race, when most people had gone home, and I'd had a fair bit of champagne and I was bursting for a pickle, so I thought I'll go behind this fence. So I was there, having my pee, quite naturally, when I got the biggest round of applause - there were two coach loads of ladies all leaning over the rail, all applauding me. I can't think why they applauded me - but I was younger in those days," he grinned. Bowsie.

There was good news for Ginger and his horse Amberleigh House close to race time when the Beeb's resident statto, Angus Loughran, analysed the first letters of the previous winners of the National. (There is help out there for Angus, if only he'd accept it). "Here's a very interesting fact," he threatened. "Only three letters have never produced the winner of the Grand National - U, X and Y. Youlneverwalkalone is a Y, so the horse will have to defy 155 years of statistics to win today."

"I shouldn't tell you this but," whispered Clare Balding, "Angus came into the meeting this morning and said 'no horse beginning with a U has ever won the Grand National'. We said 'what runner starts with U' and he said 'Youlneverwalkalone'. We said 'no, that's a Y, Angus'."

Still, though, his theory remained intact, once he remembered that 'Youlnever-

walkalone' begins with an X.

Angus was happy, then, as was trainer Jimmy Mangan whose horse failed to defy the statistics by winning. "We'll be singing the Banks of My Own Lovely Lee tonight," he told Sue Barker. Sue smiled but, you could tell, had no idea what he was talking about.

"He was like a cat," said jockey Barry Geraghty. "He travelled like a bird the whole way, jumped like a stag." Quarter horse, quarter cat, quarter bird, quarter stag - poor old Monty's Pass must have a helluva a beastly identity crisis.

Clare followed Barry into what Ginger would call the 'poof's paradise'. Any problems along the way? "I gave him a kick at the second ditch, the fourth last, and he stuck in a short one and I just said 'you ****ing eejit ya'." "Ssh, we're live on television, Barry," gulped Clare.

In the edition of this newspaper of the 6th of January 2003, in an article covering the Sports Awards ceremony in RTÉ, certain statements were made concerning the Kerry footballer Mick O'Connell. These statements were upsetting to Mr O'Connell. We regret that they were made and the distress and embarrassment caused to Mick O'Connell by the article.