To anyone with a sporting soul, Aintree in National week has always been special. Friendly ghosts of past Nationals spread their memories across this evocative arena, while the spirits of participants and spectators shed the tense inhibitions of Cheltenham's Olympian event.

In the past, there were constant caveats to the enjoyment of three days in Liverpool. The city, a tropic of football, was lukewarm to the event and, anyway, presented a deterrent of rundown streets and overpriced hotels.

It used to be a one-race meeting, the support cards as thin as the Thursday and Friday crowds. And those who did come were confronted by prehistoric facilities and a winner's enclosure so tiny it resembled a private club. The National itself was too dangerous for sensitive tastes and its start was an annual pantomime.

No such complaints could be made about last week's meeting. Liverpool is a different place now, regeneration sprinting ahead, its centre already more stylish and welcoming. Liverpudlians, too, have bought into the Aintree experience, relishing the rituals of Ladies' Day.

Thrilling racing, of a class now comparable to Cheltenham, drew increased crowds every day and an impressive aggregate of 150,000. The new stands, opened only last year, have bedded seamlessly into a suddenly civilised landscape.

Racegoers - usually creatures of stubborn habit - have migrated to the acreage of viewing around a now theatrical paddock. Jockeys descend steps from the weighing-room through a throng and winners return to face a sea of spectators rather than, as last year, the TV rostrum. If racing is to be taken seriously, these things matter.

The ground was perfect throughout and the National start, in the new and evidently confident hands of Sean McDonald, was a first-timer that reflected credit on new rules and jockey awareness. While the race itself was gruelling, with 25 non-finishers, it so nearly escaped the wretched taint of fatality.

Peter Bowen can be forgiven for not joining in any paeans of praise for the meeting. His horse, McKelvey, perished by running into rails in a boxed-off area of the course previously highlighted by the RSPCA.

Two horses also died amid the headless pace of the Topham Chase on Friday. Three deaths is three too many and, for all the safety improvements carried out here, the constant threat of more will remain the single issue that sets a proportion of the population against Aintree and all it stands for.

The rest of us, who appreciate the immense progress made by Aintree in fence revisions and general welfare matters, must encourage the course management to pursue every avenue that could make it still safer.

Horse deaths can never be eliminated - they happen in livery stables and among hobby animals every week and nobody suggests such “harmless” activities are banned. Aintree cannot hope to be immune.

But because it is uniquely scrutinised, the object of knee-jerk reactions and uneducated condemnation, it also carries a singular responsibility - not least to those of us who believe its showpiece meeting is now as enjoyable as any in the world.