Bygones: Nightmare conditions can't stop Richard Guest achieving Grand National dream

The one exception came when he, and the gallant Red Marauder approached the final fence of the most arduous Grand National since the famous race was first staged in the 1830s.

Clear of the one remaining runner Smarty – two other horses were later remounted – the tiring Guest, his red and blue silks unrecognisable after a muddy monsoon left Aintree resembling a quagmire, said a silent prayer.

“I remember saying to myself, ‘Please God, let me get over this’,” the Wetherby trainer told The Yorkshire Post in an exclusive interview to mark the 15th anniversary of the 2001 renewal.

“I was 35. I was never going to get many more chances. I hadn’t asked Him for anything in my life. I was a bit embarrassed. And then the long run-in. You don’t enjoy it, you can’t. You’ve got a job to do. Is he going to do a Devon Loch and slip up? And when you do get over the line, the feeling is relief then adulation.”

Guest, a consummate horseman from a family steeped in racing, already had two Champion Hurdles – and a National second courtesy of Romany King in 1992 – on his CV when he moved to County Durham to team up with nightclub and bingo hall owner Norman Mason, who had acquired a training licence.

As rider and unofficial trainer, Guest – whose sister is legendary trainer, Sir Henry Cecil’s widow Lady Jane – transformed the fortunes of Mason’s horses and they had two genuine contenders for the 2001 National.

Hedging their bets, the jockey had advised Mason to back Red Ark all winter in case the ground on Merseyside was quick – and Red Marauder if conditions resembled a bog.

Even though the racing authorities were desperate for the National to go ahead after foot-and-mouth claimed the previous month’s Cheltenham Festival, no one foresaw the torrents of rain that were unrelenting.

However, Guest recalls riding in the first race – he was third on a 100-1 shot – and that the horses galloped through “borderline waterlogged” ground. Yet this was a very different test to the National’s 30 fearsome fences, this was long before the safety modifications, over four-and-a-half stamina-sapping miles.

Predictably, says Guest, most of the 40 runners set off too quickly and there had already been several casualties before Ferdy Murphy’s riderless Addington Boy, a second fence faller, veered across the front of the Canal Turn, the eighth, and caused a pile-up that saw a fifth of the field come to grief.

“I could see him coming,” said Guest. “I just squeezed through. I knew plenty had stopped because I could hear the jockeys screaming.”

He did not dare, at that point, to start to sense victory.

Hunting round in the middle of the field, the aptly-titled Red Marauder – named after the Chinese quarter of Toronto – was only identified by the commentators on the run to The Chair, the biggest fence of all, and which was to claim a young Richard Johnson on Edmond, another of the favourites.

“My horse was clumsy. I gave him a crack over the shoulder because the big jump was coming. He jumped it like a twig,” recalled Guest. “We got over the Water Jump and I just thought, ‘we’ve got to do it all again’. All of a sudden, I was 10 to 15 lengths from the lead and I’m cantering.”

Just seven horses were still standing – and the carnage was to continue at the 19th fence, another imposing ditch, when a loose horse ran along the ditch guarding the front of the fence as the runners approached.

Again lady luck was on 33-1 outsider Red Marauder’s side as AP McCoy’s Blowing Wind and the Ruby Walsh-ridden Papillon, the previous year’s heroes, were stopped abruptly. Both later remounted and ended up a very remote third and fourth respectively, the only other finishers.

“I could see that happening. The horse took them two out and not me. AP was cantering, and I mean cantering. I’m sure he would have won,” said Guest.

The next fence claimed the heavily-fancied Beau – the jockey Carl Llewellyn ran in vain after the horse in the hope of remounting – and that left just Red Marauder and Smarty, ridden by Timmy Murphy and trained by Mark Pitman, as they approached Becher’s Brook for the second time.

“I looked across. There was Smarty and Timmy. If I stood up, I thought, I win because Smarty won’t get home,” said Guest. “But the one person I didn’t want to see, however, was Timmy because I knew he would get round. We stood off too early at Becher’s. Just about made it. I’m still not quite sure how, and we breasted Valentine’s.

“Red Marauder didn’t fall very often, but he was an awful jumper. He was as clumsy as ... I was happy to get a lead off Timmy because I knew the horse would keep going.”

Such was Guest’s level of concentration that his mud-caked goggles got caught up on his chin and he did not dare take his hands off the reins as Smarty’s suspect stamina ebbed away on the home turn. A tired jump two out left Red Marauder clear approaching the last.

Considering the pressure, and conditions, the winning jump was relatively fluent. Because the ground was so heavy, no horse or jockey was injured while the winning time, in excess of 11 minutes, was just about the slowest in the race’s long history.

As he crossed the line after winning in his own time by a distance, Guest immediately dismounted to allow Red Marauder time to recover while a debate raged about whether the race should have taken place. The award-winning writer Alastair Down wrote: “You can wash the mud off the jockeys’ silks, but not the stain off the race.”

Yet Guest, riding in his eighth National, thought such verdicts were harsh. He says there would have been more finishers if the riderless horses had not caused so much mayhem – and if his fellow jockeys had ridden more conservatively.

“All those injuries, grievances about being jocked off, the travelling ... all that pales into insignificance because you’ve done what so many people can only dream of doing,” added the jockey who reports Red Marauder, now 26 years young, to be in rude health at his Ingmanthorpe stables.

“I had never been fitter – I hadn’t had a drink for a year – and it became the survival of the fittest. I’d never been so physically or mentally shattered. When I was just a kid, my dad said you had to ride horses ‘every step of the way’. That’s how I won the National, plus a bit of luck.”

And a helping hand at the last when Red Marauder bravely cleared the most important fence in Richard Guest’s life on a proverbial wing and a prayer.

Hopes remain to own big winner

EVEN though Richard Guest made his name as a fearless rider over National Hunt obstacles, he predominantly trains Flat horses at his hospitable Ingmanthorpe Stables, near Kirk Deighton.

However, the dream is still the same – the hope that, one day, he comes across a horse that is good enough to compete for one of the sport’s top prizes.

His 32 horses, plus the retired 2001 Grand National hero Red Marauder, who will take his place in Saturday’s parade of former champions at Aintree, include an exciting crop of two-year-old prospects.

Guest and accountant Mike Mahoney have also set up The 50-50 Racing Club where members pay £50 a month for the privilege of co-owning three horses throughout the summer, and enjoying all the privileges that ownership entails.

The horses are the consistent Sakhalin Star, Blagger, who is on the comeback trail, and the filly Dalalah, who was bred by Sheikh Hamdam al Maktoum and has bucketloads of potential according to Guest.

“If you think about the cost, it’s less than the price of a cup of coffee each day,” said the trainer.

Further details about the club can be found at www.5050racing.co.uk.