Mourners pack in to memorial service for Red Rum’s trainer

The four-time Grand National-winning trainer, forever associated with Red Rum, was remembered before, during and after the service conducted by Dean Canon Myles Davies, within five miles of Aintree. Richard Pitman, the jockey pipped at the post on Crisp in the first of Red Rum’s three 1970s victories, read a personal address containing his poem entitled Oh Ginger, Oh Ginger, while the attendance of football’s Sir Bobby Charlton was a further measure of McCain and Red Rum’s resonance well beyond the world of racing.

“I’m not a horsey person at all,” he said. “But I had the ponies; someone told him, and he bought one for his daughter.”

One of the Charlton family pets even ended up accompanying Red Rum to Southport beach, where the great horse’s bone ailments had previously been soothed when he was preparing for his National challenges.

Southport-born Ginger died in September at the age of 80.

McCain’s son admitted to doubts the well-wishers would swell sufficiently to fill such a grand venue.

“There were people you didn’t expect to come who were turning up. That’s smashing.”