Memories of Red Rum’s heroic feats left me misty-eyed - Sarah Todd
A friend made me feel nostalgic just before they went under starter’s orders in last weekend’s running of our nation’s most famous horserace, the Grand National.
The television build-up had been missed as an old ewe had decided - for the second year running - to have triplets despite showing on the pregnancy scanning machine as only carrying twins.
Two took some getting and a sprint worthy of any fine filly’s final furlong only just got this viewer in front of the gogglebox in time.
The mobile phone was pinging with a message from the aforementioned friend, who said ‘It’s made me feel old when the young ‘uns don’t know who Red Rum is…’
Turns out there had been some pre-race interviews with the younger generation, who had absolutely no knowledge of the legendary three-time winner of the toughest steeplechase in the world.
As an aside, it’s Red Rum’s backstory of being passed from yard to yard without a second thought, diagnosed with a bone disease and then ending up in some stables around the back of his new trainer’s second-hand car business - trained on the beach at Southport - that gets your correspondent feeling misty-eyed rather than his undeniably brilliant racecourse performances.
Another friend, now long departed, was a local Blackpool Gazette snapper and as such allowed into trainer Donald ‘Ginger’ McCain’s yard. Bill the photographer’s old black and white photograph has pride of place on our kitchen wall; the horse seemingly laughing after his latest victory and his trainer doing the same, wearing an old jumper and a smile as wide as his horse’s.
They were such simpler times, no big money or fancy facilities. That was the magic of the race - that an outsider might just be lucky.
It would be remiss not to mention that after Red Rum we had, in 1981, Aldaniti. The story of this racehorse’s victory was so inspiring it was made into a film, with John Hurt starring as his jockey Bob Champion. You see, back in the day, Champion was ranked amongst the top ten professional jockeys in the country. But in 1979 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, fighting back from the brutal chemotherapy treatment that almost killed him to get back in the saddle and win the famous race. The final pluck on the old heartstrings was that Aldaniti himself had recovered against seemingly all odds after suffering a career-threatening injury.
It goes without saying that this old romantic had her little flutter in this year’s race on Twig, the horse who was bought for just £100.
The story goes that nobody wanted Twig after he finished last in his first two races. The Morgan family took a chance, paid a hundred quid, and watched him win some amateur point-to-point races with their son Beau, who had only started riding shortly before, in the saddle.
From those humble beginnings he took his place in the lineup for this year’s £500,000 winner’s purse and thankfully him and now 21-year-old Beau came home safely, finishing 15th.
But let’s meander back onto the nostalgia pathway
In reply to the friend at the beginning, who couldn’t believe youngsters not knowing anything about Red Rum, it was revealed that back in 1984, the year Hallo Dandy won, this then 11-year-old went on a pony club bus trip to the Grand National.
The club’s district commissioner was - and still is - a force to be reckoned with and she frogmarched us through the crowds and right up into prime position on the bank next to Becher’s Brook to watch the race. Can you imagine that? The thundering sound of the hooves passing by can still be conjured up over four decades later. Today’s health and safety legislation means crowds can’t even get up to the side of a fence in an amateur race. But there we were, slap bang next to the spot named after Captain Martin Becher - who took shelter in the brook after falling here in the very first running of the Grand National in 1839 - munching our sandwiches after the long bus journey.
In a sad twist, Hallo Dandy was discovered badly neglected at the age of 20. His horrified owners took him back and gifted him to the British Thoroughbred Retraining Centre, where he was returned to full health and lived a wonderful life as the flagship horse promoting the charity’s work until his death aged 33.
Now this sounds like the plot for another tear-jerking film.
In an increasingly frightening world we must keep hold of a little bit of magic; the catches of breath that elevate the ordinary into the spine tingling.