IT SOUNDED such a straightforward assignment. The task was to name the best
Grand National stories and, instantly, a group of vivid memories clamoured
for attention. And this was the tease — there were far too many candidates.
I set out thinking it would be easy. I ended up savouring the nostalgia,
pouring another glass and starting the delicious research all over again.
The thing about the National is that it produces original, compelling theatre
every year. It never lets you down. Even when there is no race (the 1997
bomb hoax), or no real race (the 1993 false start fiasco), it muscles its
way onto the front pages and news headlines and into the ardent
conversations of folk who would normally talk about anything bar horse
racing. No other race can do this — not the Derby, not even the Gold Cup at
Cheltenham — and perhaps no other event in the world of sport can command
such an eclectic audience and such devoted attention, year on year.
Plenty of my friends have never been racing and harbour contemptuous views
about the sport. They would not be seen dead in a betting shop and haven’t
the foggiest idea how to fill out a betting slip. Yet they know the full,
moist-eyed story of Aldaniti’s National and can match me in reciting details
of the bizarre belly-flop of Devon Loch in 1956.
If I quiz them on the anomaly, the contradiction of showing such interest in a
sport they habitually deem a tedious irrelevance, they look affronted, even
indignant. “It’s the National, isn’t it? That’s different.” And somehow, for
so many people, so it is. For a single week in April — or it might be a
single day, a single hour or a single ten minutes, depending on your level
of transient conversion — all deep-seated prejudice and indifference is put
aside. I know how they feel, these people, because I was once in their
number. Not having grown up with racing or horses, much less betting, it was
the bravery and bravado of jump jockeys that first engaged my interest. I
had to go to Aintree, of course, and still clearly remember my first walk
round the course on Grand National morning, pausing in the gawping swarm of
like-minded to stand by various, vertiginous fences and wonder not just how
a horse could jump them but why a jockey would want to sit on top while he
tried.
Understanding, if not empathy, has dawned with time. The riders do it, so they
say, because there is no kick in the world to rival jumping Aintree and no
day in their annual calendar more certain to produce a fund of stories to
sustain the weighing-room appetite for self-mockery and tacit, mutual
respect. And, of course, they do it because they are potty.
Jockeys treat Aintree differently to most other meetings in the jumps season.
The racing, these days, is of searingly high quality throughout the three
days but it is like a working holiday — most of the jockeys stay in
Liverpool and, unlike at Cheltenham, they will allow themselves a degree of
social winding-down each evening. Partly, of course, this is a release for
that mix of excitement and vague anxiety which this meeting induces.
No matter the buzz from the valuable racing or the ever-growing crowds on
Thursday and Friday, there is always the sense that everyone is gathered to
wait for that moment on the Saturday afternoon when the 40 riders appear
from the ridiculously obsolete yet evocative weighing-room, wearing the
boyish grins and sharing the giggly jokes of schoolboys allowed to miss
lessons to climb a mountain. They feel privileged to be there but nervously
unsure of what is about to happen to them.
That, in essence, is the magnetism of the National. Partly through the fences
(still forbidding despite the years of gentle trimming), partly through the
marathon distance of 4½ miles and partly through the number of runners,
there is a potential for the unexpected that cannot be rivalled in any other
race.
There have been 156 runnings of the Grand National and it would be harsh to
condemn any of them as dull. This script just doesn’t do mundane. How could
the tone have been more aptly set, indeed, than by the inaugural winner in
1839 being called Lottery? That first year, they ran the race on a Tuesday
in February and the National course included a high stone wall, a stretch of
ploughed field and, in the home straight, two ordinary, namby-pamby hurdles
— you can bet they were the first to go as the race was toughened up into a
proper test of man and beast.
Jockeys tended to be more versatile in those 19th century times, the
distinction between Flat and jumps riders nowhere near as clear as it has
become. In 1893, for instance, an adaptable fellow named Harry Barker
finished second in the Grand National, on Aesop, then went to Epsom in June
to ride the runner-up in the Derby. It would be unthinkable nowadays.
Perhaps the first great Grand National horse — the type that keeps coming
back, year on year, until he has his own fan club — was Manifesto. He won
the race in 1897 and 1899 but ran in it eight years in succession. His
valedictory Aintree run was completed at the age of 16.
Many who were captivated by the 2001 National, in which Red Marauder and
Smarty were the only two horses to jump round — though two more remounted to
finish — will be intrigued to hear of previous, similar instances. In 1911,
the one-eyed Glenside was the only runner to manage a clear round and in
1928, Tipperary Tim was alone of the 42 starters to negotiate the course
safely.
Before the days of safety limits, field sizes were sometimes staggering — 66,
in 1929, was the highest. Five years later, Golden Miller wrote his name
into racing legend by becoming the only horse to win the Gold Cup and Grand
National in the same season. He had won the third of his five successive
Gold Cups when coming on to triumph at Aintree but it was an isolated
success in the race — he ran in five Nationals and failed to complete the
other four.
If we were spreading ourself over the entire history of the National, Golden
Miller’s year would be a strong contender for our list. In the interests of
practicality, however, we shall confine this project to the past 50 years of
the greatest race in the world and the mission is to nominate the four
finest tales — in ascending order — from that half-century.
Even omitting more than two thirds of the runnings does not exactly simplify
the choice. Everyone will have their favourite memory and those of a certain
age may even go back the full 50 years and make a case for Vincent O’Brien,
who won three successive Nationals, each with a different horse, between
1953 and 1955 before trying to find a new challenge in Flat racing.
Another towering personality of racing, Fred Winter, won the National as a
jockey in 1957 and 1962 but surely his greatest achievement was in training
the 1965 winner. Both the horse, Jay Trump, and the jockey, Tommy Smith,
were from America and needed skilled and protracted tuition in the ways of
British racing. The makers of Seabiscuit could have had a similar big-screen
hit if they had happened on this story instead.
The other indelible image of 1960s Nationals is provided by the pile-up at the
relatively small 23rd fence, where the erratic behaviour of a loose horse
called Popham Down eliminated most of the field. But not Foinavon, the 100-1
shot who picked a path through the chaos to imprint his own name, and that
of John Buckingham, his jockey, on all sporting consciences. If Vincent
O’Brien dominated the 1950s, Red Rum was the commanding presence of the
1970s. This is one of those rare beasts whose name is now part of everyday
vocabulary and whose story — he was trained on a beach and stabled at the
back of a second-hand car showroom up the coast in Southport — adds
immeasurably to the lure. But he only won his first National, in 1973, by
overhauling Crisp, the most agonising of losers, in the shadow of the post.
So much more, stories everywhere you look. What of Jenny Pitman, who became a
standing dish, if she will pardon the phrase, for almost 15 years and won
the race twice from 39 runners.
There was Corbiere and Royal Athlete and the gallant attempt to emulate Golden
Miller by Garrison Savannah. Or was the most vivid Pitman memory provided by
Esha Ness, who “won” the void National of 1993 and broke the heart of John
White, his jockey? Everyone has a personal tale about the bomb hoax National
— it is one of those “I was there” days that leads to a thousand anecdotes —
while the number of Irishmen who claim to have been at Aintree in 1999, for
their first National winner in 24 years, seems to run into millions.
The Aintree course, and its anachronistic winner’s enclosure, produces a drama
and a dream every April. It never fails. But which are the best four of
them? I have my view now but many will beg to differ.
Grand National landmarks
1839 In the first Aintree National, Captain Becher fell from
his horse, Conrad, landing in a brook. The legend of Becher’s Brook lives on
to this day
1857 Never mind one false start, there were a remarkable
seven this year. Once the race finally got under way, victory went to
Emigrant, a 10-1 shot
1919 Ernie Piggott, grandfather of the legendary Lester, took
the National on board Poethlyn, the strongly fancied 11-4 favourite
1929 The biggest National field, with 66 runners facing the
starter. The inevitable shock result arrived courtesy of Gregalach, the
100-1 chance
1960 The first televised National, with the BBC entrusting
Peter O’Sullevan with the job of commentating on the success of Merryman II
1982 Geraldine Rees became the first woman to complete the
course on Cheers, the last of eight to complete the course behind Grittar,
the winner
