That thought occurred to me eight years ago when my daughter was treated in the Waley-Cohen wing of the John Radcliffe Hospital. Thankfully she had nothing worse than a broken arm sustained in falling of her pony. But all the same, our days in that hospital brought home the enormity of Sam’s and Marcus’s loss. And it feels like the whole world took that on board on Saturday.

I also felt a certain amount of grief for the race itself this year for the first time. There is an irony that if you are trying to make something safer, it ends up being more dangerous. And I suspect the Aintree fences have now been tamed so much to try to avoid injury to the horses that the jockeys and horses no longer have sufficient respect for them.

National Hunt racing is still a sport; and it definitely is not about the money. That may be blindingly obvious to most fans and after such an amazing three days of racing at Aintree, it might sound rather perverse to say that my favourite moment of the meeting was a stewards’ inquiry on Thursday.

The result of the Grade One Juvenile hurdle was decided in the stewards’ room after Pied Piper and Knight Salute had dead-heated. Pied Piper had, however, inadvertently crossed Knight Salute at the last by moving to the left to give himself room to jump it.

Paddy Brennan could easily have convinced the stewards that Pied Piper’s deviation had cost his mount Knight Salute a moment of impetus and his connections £20,000. But instead he behaved like an absolute sportsman and told the stewards he had not been inconvenienced. Clearly he felt that a winner was a winner and he did not mind sharing it, even if it meant having to share the money too. Milton Harris, Knight Salute’s trainer, also expressed that attitude.

It was a moment that made me proud of National Hunt racing. It was right up there with Nicky Henderson, in the heat and disappointment of the moment, refusing [correctly] to blame watering of the course at Cheltenham this year on Shishkin not firing in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Both were nearly as inspiring as Willie Mullins’s reaction to Al Boum Photo running out at the last at Punchestown in 2018. At the time the incident appeared to have cost him the trainers’ title. But he took it on the chin in the most extraordinarily sportsmanlike manner.

Credit, however, should also be given to the stewards at Aintree for making the correct, but unpopular decision to disqualify Pied Piper, while experts such as Ruby Walsh and Mick Fitzgerald disagreed.

Walsh made the point that Davy Russell was making a technical, safety manoeuvre in allowing Pied Piper to drift to the left to jump the hurdle. And indeed he was. But he also took Knight Salute’s ground, and you cannot have a rule that condones that.

Fitzgerald questioned why there was any point in asking the jockeys their opinions if you do not take what they say as gospel. But that is clearly naive. There are many reasons why jockeys may paint their own versions of events in a stewards’ room. It is the stewards’ job to look at all of the evidence and follow the rules.