Grand National 2012: BBC robbed of fitting swansong as its last National is forever tainted by Synchronised demise Synchronised, the Cheltenham Gold Cup champion, had been destroyed after falling at Becher's Brook. For the BBC, the news was not what it wanted to deliver. Not on this its swansong at the race. What it wanted was a tale of equine derring do, of humble jockeys and proud owners. And perhaps a few shots of someone celebrating a little too exuberantly in the winners' enclosure. All to be edited in super slow motion, played out to a rousing orchestral score, as a tear rolled gently from the corner of Clare Balding's eye. Which may explain why, even as the race was re-shown, in the annual post-mortem of the nation's gambling hopes (my own betting slip was in the bin before the first circuit of the course had been completed), no mention was made that a great horse had met its end. On Twitter, on newspaper websites, on the radio the news was already spinning out about the death. On BBC1, we did not learn of the detail that mattered until long after it had happened, when it was quickly dismissed as one of those things that happen in racing. This was the 52nd National the corporation has broadcast since Merryman II, the 13-2 favourite, won the first televised event in 1960. Back then the race was far fiercer, the fences spiteful in their danger and the frequent deaths not mentioned. The modern irony is that as the course has been made infinitely safer, so the limits of public tolerance have lowered. And while high definition and multiple camera angles may help set the pulse racing, they also make the crashes and falls significantly more wince-inducing on television than they are at the course. There were times, as you watched the glorious horseflesh crumple, that you had to do so through our fingers. This is the dilemma the broadcaster faces: its improving technical ability to show us the race's drama simultaneously exposes the unhappy consequences. Still, it is now no longer the BBC's problem. From next year, Channel 4 will be wrestling with the thorny issue of how to let the once-a-year racing fan appreciate the sport's glory while acknowledging its dark underbelly. Let's hope they are better prepared than the BBC. Because the one thing we can be certain of with the world's most unpredictable sporting event is this: it will happen again.