THERE was something distinctly providential about two horses named for a pair of neighbouring mountains on the northwest tip of Scotland. One of them, Arkle, was to prove himself the best steeplechaser of all time; the other was to write one of the most compelling chapters in Grand National history. His name was Foinavon.

A year younger than Arkle, and light years behind on raw ability, Foinavon’s story will almost certainly outlast the legend of “Himself”. For it is not just about a 100-1 shot who ghosted through unprecedented mayhem to win the 1967 Grand National. It is a modern parable of perseverance against the odds.

Even now, 37 years later, John Buckingham, who rode Foinavon, is animated in recalling it. A fleeting moment to the rest of us, it is so vivid in his mind that it might have happened yesterday. At the time he was the only one who did not know what the rest of the world could see: that Foinavon was the sole survivor of a wholesale mêlée at Aintree’s 23rd fence.

“I could see what had happened up ahead of me,” he related, “but at the time I was just trying to find a way through. Stan Mellor, who’d been thrown over the fence, started running alongside after Foinavon clamboured over it, shouting: ‘Keep going John. You’ll win if you stand up’.”

Winning had been far from Buckingham’s mind as the field made its way down to Becher’s Brook on the second circuit. Back then, it was only after clearing this intimidating obstacle — 5½ feet high on the take-off side, dropping to nearly eight feet on landing — that jockeys dared to believe they might complete the course. Unusually, most of the runners were still on their feet. Even more unusually, Becher’s, jumped this time as the 22nd fence, would claim no victims.

And so to the 23rd, the smallest fence on the course. Buckingham approached it at the rear of the field, which abetted his great escape. The riderless Popham Down led the charge when he suddenly veered sharply to his right. Perhaps his vaulting of Becher’s had frightened him; whatever the reason, a horse that was running straight towards the fence was now running across it on the take-off side. He was about to precipitate a pile-up that would have raised Murray Walker’s voice to fever pitch.

“One second we were galloping along,” Buckingham said, “the next I saw horses jumping into the fence, into each other or just plain stopping. A few of them were running back down the course towards me. Josh Gifford was riding the favourite, Honey End, who was four lengths in front of me. As Honey End stopped, I switched Foinavon abruptly to the outside and just missed cannoning into him. I guess someone up on high was looking after me.”

Having swerved the pile-up, however, Buckingham could feel Foinavon slowing almost to a trot as the fence loomed. Horses scare easily; having seen everything ahead of him come to a standstill, Foinavon’s instinct would have been to do likewise. As the saying goes, it is sheep, not horses, that follow each other off the edge of a cliff.

“I could just about make out a part of the fence on the outside,” Buckingham said, “so I angled for it. And you’ve got to give Foinavon credit: he jumped it more or less from a standstill. The rest of the fence was pretty well demolished. Some horses were still jammed into it, and there was a mad scramble as jockeys started trying to remount.”

Just as Foinavon’s inclination was to stop at the pile-up, so he was now required to defy another instinct common to herd animals. He was out on his own, with only Buckingham for company. “I was just praying that he wouldn’t stop,” his jockey related. It probably helped that Foinavon was wearing blinkers. These are designed to prevent a horse from seeing what’s behind him — which, in Foinavon’s case, was nothing at all.

Obliged to look straight ahead, Foinavon ploughed on over the last seven fences. “As we approached the last I could see that Honey End (who had resumed the chase) was closing,” Buckingham said, “but making that ground must have tired him. I pulled away again up the run-in and won by 15 lengths.”

On returning to weigh in, Buckingham, then 27, doesn’t remember the crowd’s stunned silence as described by others. And he couldn’t celebrate with Foinavon’s owner or trainer, neither of whom was present. “John Kempton, his trainer, went to Worcester, where he rode a winner,” Buckingham related.

“I only rode the horse because John couldn’t make the weight, and two other jockeys turned down the ride because the owner (Cyril Watkins) wouldn’t pay them anything over the riding fee. He was supposed to look after me if I rode a good race, but he never did.”

Buckingham went on to ride 89 winners before breaking his knee in 1971, the year of his retirement. For the next 30 years he ran a jockeys’ valet business until the terminal illness of his brother, Tom, forced him to sell up in 2001. “Even now,” he said, “hardly a day goes by without someone wanting to talk about Foinavon. I never tire of the story even though I’ve told it thousands of times.”

Together with his wife, Ann, Buckingham will return to Aintree tomorrow for the first time in three years. The hairs on the back of his neck will rise up as he enters the weighing-room to see where he sat, 37 years ago, without the faintest idea that he would soon be riding into folklore. “It’s so true what they say about the Grand National,” he reflected. “You just never know what can happen.”