RACING has a crude obsession with first place. So much can turn on a photo: careers, stallion fees, countless wagers. But some of the names Aintree has made immortal preserve the bittersweet glory that can be found in failure. Devon Loch most of all, perhaps, but it falls to another horse to represent all whose class and courage has been even more vivid in defeat than in victory.

It was Crisp who introduced Red Rum, the day he won his first National, as a resented villain. Not that Crisp’s jockey saw it that way. Richard Pitman had been to a cocktail party at Ginger McCain’s house the night before, and this week recalled being comforted by his happiness for the trainer. “I was too soft, really,” Pitman said. “You’ll never be a champion if you’re a good loser.”

But then that is the whole point of this story. Crisp was a very good loser indeed — a great loser, in fact. Imported from Australia, he had become a champion chaser over two miles for Fred Winter, so earning his place alone at the top of the handicap for his venture into the unknown. The four and a half miles of the Grand National would measure his dynamism against the dead weight in his saddlecloth, and against the doughty graft of his inferiors.

“He had a flamboyant way about him that really caught people’s imagination,” Pitman said. “Fred and I had talked about it long and hard. The obvious thing would be to try and settle him. But he was so exuberant, we felt there was no point landing on the backsides of horses propping at the third fence. Once Crisp was committed to a jump, he would quicken of his own volition. He set himself alight. He was very quick going into a fence, and would be galloping again before he hit the ground. My only chance to settle him would be on his landing stride. But he wasn’t running away. He was always very measured. The idea was to slow them down from the front, and conserve his stamina that way.”

That was the theory. Once the tapes went up, however, Crisp proved irrepressible. “You jump one fence at Aintree and blow me, there’s another one,” Pitman said. “And every single fence was ping, ping, ping.” Sticking to the inside, they had only Grey Sombrero for company, and he was way out wide. Crisp treated Becher’s like a suburban privet hedge, and this in the days before the course was modified to make it safer for horse and rider.

Approaching the Canal Turn, Pitman pulled him across and scraped a boot. His only blemish would come at the Chair, where he stood off too far and kicked off the top, but even here he lost no momentum. All he lost, in fact, was Grey Sombrero.

“And now, all of a sudden, we were 25 lengths clear,” Pitman said. “And that was what was so eerie. There was complete silence. Normally the National is full of noise. It’s something we struggle to convey on the television: the shouting, the flying birch, great lungfuls of air being expelled. But that day everything was silent. Just some cheering, and I could hear the Tannoy, which you wouldn’t normally.”

Pitman was about to experience the loneliness of the long-distance runner. “Spruce was strewn all over the place. The odd loose horse that had been caught, the odd jockey was leaning on the rail. I remember seeing one rider just standing there holding a bridle. His horse had obviously cleared off. What a forlorn figure he cut — and here I was, still cantering, all on my own.”

Again they flew Becher’s. To this day Pitman can hear the tones of Michael O’Hehir, telling him that Crisp was 25 lengths clear, that Red Rum was emerging from the pack but with Brian Fletcher hard at work. Then he saw David Nicholson, who had come down on the first circuit. “He looked like a big Indian chief watching a battle,” Pitman said. “‘You’re actually 33 and a half lengths clear,’ he said. ‘Keep hold of his head, and you’ll be all right.’

“Crisp still felt so strong, so full of running. But it was always in the back of my mind that a horse that does so much on the bridle can empty very quickly. And it’s still a long way to the winning post from Becher’s second time.”

Crisp was brilliant again at the Canal Turn and there, in the distance, were the stands. If he could just keep hold of his head . . . “But then it happened, after the second last,” Pitman said. “Just the way I had feared. It all fell apart. It probably wasn’t apparent from the stands, but it was very quick. He had this great stride, but suddenly his legs were going sideways instead of forwards, grabbing instead of reaching. Those big lop ears went floppy. All of a sudden, his strength was gone. And on the firm ground I could hear hoofbeats, like thunder. It so happens that Red Rum was one of those very rare horses, a high blower. Every time he exhaled, his nostrils flapped. So I could hear that, too.”

And then Pitman made what he considers a schoolboy error, something for which he has reproached himself ever since. He picked up the whip. “And in the wrong hand, too. I probably shouldn’t have picked it up at all, or maybe given him one crack after the Elbow. As it was, he lost all momentum, I had to stop riding to get him round the Elbow. And here was Red Rum, finishing like a train. Poor old Crisp was out on his feet. Even then, I could feel him tighten as he sensed the other horse approach. He was absolutely bottomed, but that racing instinct was in-built. Only he had nothing left to fight with.”

So the euphoria evaporated into despair. Yet Pitman was able to restore a profound sense of privilege even as he pulled up. “It was only three weeks previously that Pendil had been beaten a short head in the Gold Cup. But Fred put his arms round me, gave me a squeeze, and said well done. It doesn’t haunt me. But it irks me. Fred was my hero. The owner had been so adventurous. Then there was Chipper Chase, his dedicated lad. And all the punters. Everyone had lost out, bar me. I had had an experience that no money could buy. It would have been nice to have the chance to put it right. But the horse was born too soon. He deserved to have Francome on board.”

The following season, Crisp beat Red Rum in a match at Doncaster, but broke down in the process and spent the next eight years hunting the Zetland country. Pitman was asked to write his obituary for Horse & Hound. “He was buried under a flowering cherry tree, and I remember ending the piece by saying that every year at this time, at National time, the blossom would float down like tears.”