Over the years I have made a habit of starting Grand National Day by visiting Red Rum’s grave near the visiting post and then walking the course to remind myself just how big those obstacles are.
Over the years I have made a habit of starting Grand National Day by visiting Red Rum’s grave near the visiting post and then walking the course to remind myself just how big those obstacles are. (Yes, even the open ditches with their sloping spruce fronts require horse and jockey to clear an obstacle 5ft 6ins high and 10ft 6ins wide from the sighting board to the turf on the other side.) I like to do it early while the helicopters are sputtering over Aintree, knots of policemen in yellow jackets are being briefed on where to place their helmets should they encounter a streaker and caterers are rushing by with champagne that you hope somebody is going to find the time to chill.
Somehow I wasn’t surprised that this year, before I had gone 100 yards, I had to dodge a bloke in a nun’s outfit playing boogie-woogie on a motorised piano. Racing has well and truly embraced the entertainment business. In fact, Ladies Day at Aintree on the Friday these days is more like an open-air disco as she-packs totter past on impossible heels in skirts no Christmas Tree fairy would have been seen dead in. They photograph each other constantly on their mobiles, which are often smaller than their earrings.
‘Wha’s tha?’ I was asked by one in a mini-dress that resembled a skimpy purple bandage round her bottom. The item was, I explained, a racecard listing the horses to enable one to have a bet. Did she, I inquired in turn, know the name of a single horse running? No, she didn’t. Indeed, I doubt if she saw anything with four legs all day. Especially by the time she had finished the pint glass of rosé she was clutching.
It was heartening, therefore, to see that on National day there were literally hundreds of racing fans out walking the course with me. There were plenty, too, at Red Rum’s Polo-strewn grave where there was a bouquet from a grateful McCain family member. Ginger McCain, of course, trained Red Rum to win the Nationals of 1973, 74 and 77 and to finish second in 1975 and 1976. He then confounded those who said he’d been lucky to handle a freak by winning it with Amberleigh House. His quieter son Donald now trains more horses than Ginger ever did and better-class ones at that. As I stood at Red Rum’s grave, I thought it would be only a matter of time before son followed father. But alas I didn’t back his Ballabriggs who romped home to glory last Saturday, having already committed ante-post to Quinz and Backstage, and convinced myself that morning that Evan Williams had been really shrewd in holding back his State of Play, twice a finisher in the first four, and not running him this year before the National.
Having backed State of Play each way at 28–1, I found a bookie on course offering 40–1 and had another go. State of Play’s late run into fourth position was therefore some consolation but of course we all want winners, and I will be having an early bet next year. To protect Ballabriggs’s handicap mark, Donald McCain only ran him over hurdles before this year’s Grand National weights were announced, a stratagem being adopted by more and more trainers. The equally shrewd Peter Bowen did the same with Always Waining but he was unlucky in that he missed the cut for this year’s 40-strong National by one. Always Waining ran instead in the Topham Chase over the same fences on the Friday, and won it for the second year running at a tasty 14–1. Peter Bowen has trained three Topham Chase winners in six years and had a second in the National, and what I liked about Always Waining was his acceleration after the last. ‘Of course we don’t know if he will last four and a half miles,’ said Peter, ‘and there’s only one way of finding out.’ But I liked the smile that went with that remark.
It isn’t only the winners that provide the stories. Chris Pitt, who has already written a book about defunct racecourses, has now done another volume, Go Down to the Beaten (Racing Post, £20), about horses and riders who failed to win the National. There are many moments to treasure like John Leech, one of the jockeys who remounted in 1967 after the carnage at the 23rd fence, asking himself as he approached the final stages of the race, ‘I suppose I am on the right horse?’ Then there was Bill Balfe, who rode possibly the worst horse ever to run in the National, a terrible jumper called Elsich. His eccentric trainer, who had worked in Calgary, had a massive saddle from that experience which he asked the jockey to use in practice. The theory was that if the horse hit fences and couldn’t dislodge his rider he would think it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to do so. Balfe told Chris Pitt, ‘It was a bit uncomfortable. I sang soprano for a couple of weeks.’
There is a story, too, about Jim Renfree,who rode as an amateur too long because his Cornish father was too mean to pay him fees as a professional, giving the professional David Nicholson the wrong advice on how to ride a mare he wanted to get back on. Nicholson still won but only after a struggle between horse and rider. The owner declared, ‘We won’t be needing ’e again,’ and refused to pay Nicholson. Jim Renfree wasn’t worried by riding in his first National because he was used to banks and thought that over four and a half miles they wouldn’t go too fast. But he went off too quickly and fell. ‘It took me a long time to learn that you had to wait in the Grand National. It’s a race you’ve got to ride in once to realise what it’s all about.’
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