As with any public entertainment, especially one involving humans and animals performing under pressure, a great deal can go wrong at a big race meeting. Something invariably does. So completing three demanding days, on the most public stage of all, with nothing but praise to be heard, is a conspicuous triumph.

The Aintree meeting was not without its problems. There was a pathetically prolonged start to the Grand National and later a prostrate, exhausted horse that led to the loss of the concluding race. But the racecourse was blameless for the first circumstance and behaved correctly in the second.

By abandoning the championship bumper, Aintree was emphasising its self-evident priority of horse welfare and rendering still more misguided those Animal Aid extremists who campaign annually to have the meeting banned on grounds of cruelty.

As lurid headlines inevitably await grim tidings from this most scrutinised of racecourses, it is fair and proper to report that no horses died in the National and that the one serious casualty, who suffered from that rare April condition of heatstroke, received copious care and is recovering well.

Avoiding the indefensible, however, was but one element of Aintree’s success. Much more positive was the quality of the racing, the defiantly impeccable state of the ground in outrageously warm weather and, best of all, a stunning atmosphere provided by two new stands.

British racecourses have done a lot of developments recently and not all have been well received. Indeed, no sooner will Charles Barnett vacate the hot seat at Aintree than he will encounter a residue of ill-will created by that rather larger new build at Ascot.

But if anyone can restore the public confidence that the royal racecourse has dramatically mislaid, Barnett can. Perhaps with Ascot in mind, he had refrained from talking up Aintree’s new stands in advance, preferring to see how they worked under raceday conditions. He need not have worried. They not only looked good but also, looming over the new paddock, acted as a conductor of Aintree’s unique theatre.

Horses went out and back on an American-style walkway between stands and packed balconies. For the general public, as opposed to those few professionals who used to feel cosily privileged leaning against the ancient timbers of the quaint old winner’s enclosure, it transformed their ability to engage with the emotions of the meeting.

Crowds last week were well up to recent levels and, on National day, the number paying to enter the main course enclosures was significantly increased. Ladies’ Day was a hoot once again, cementing the racecourse link with the city of Liverpool, and the Thursday continues to rise in standard and support.

Unsurprisingly, the BBC is keen to push the start time of the National back still further, to that 5pm slot when gardens and football grounds no longer have a rival pull on potential audience. Such a move may be the next stage in Aintree’s modernisation. Meanwhile, Barnett is leaving a legacy of goodwill that few rival venues can match.

Fitzgerald makes brave call to defer retirement

The worst-kept secret in racing finally went public at the weekend when Mick Fitzgerald confirmed that he is not retiring, after all. As he remains formidably fit and motivated and has plainly lost none of his jockeyship skills with advancing years, the news brought a general murmur of approval.

Maybe we should be surprised, though, and even a little concerned. When Fitzgerald said that this was to be his last season, it was no knee-jerk decision. He took it after reflecting on a series of injuries, including a recent broken neck that could have left him paralysed. He did not say he was quitting because his nerve had gone — far from it — but because he had seen a life beyond.

At the time, he was adamant. “Basically, I’m stubborn, pretty set in my ways,” he said in October. “If I decide to do something, that’s it. It takes an awful lot to make me change my mind.”

Yet that stubborn mind has been changed, partly by the crop of auspicious young horses being trained by his boss, Nicky Henderson, and partly because he thinks he will miss the curious, consuming life of the jump jockey even more than he had anticipated.

Fitzgerald remains one of our finest jockeys and most articulate sporting ambassadors. I applaud him for the U-turn, which can’t have been easy for one so single-minded. But, more than anything, I hope he never regrets it.