This year in the Grand National, we may run out of caps for JP McManus’ runners, and people have already started moaning about the size of the fences.
GG Jumps Journal – Grand National anniversaries
But it wasn’t always like this.
You could ask a random generator to give you any year from 1836 onwards and the chances are that year’s Grand National provided a storyline or two. It is a madcap sporting event and we should continue to cherish it in whatever guise it emerges in every year.
It is also the ultimate sporting event for nostalgia. So I’ve turned on GG’s time machine to celebrate some Grand National anniversaries.
150 years ago – 1876, won by Regal
Imagine if this year’s clear Grand National favourite had never run over fences before. No, not just the Grand National fences. Any fences. It’s not too late to divert City Of Troy here Aidan.
Chandos was said horse, starting at odds of just 100/30. He either fell at the penultimate fence, or the last open ditch, which is pretty decent going for a chase debutant.
Time is a flat circle though, so obviously the main complaint was that only 24 fences were jumped and that some of them were hurdles. It is also suggested the ground was overly “ploughed”, thus the winning time implied heavy ground.
Regal prevailed in one of the original Grand National nail-biters. He beat Congress by a neck in a race in which either nine or ten horses finished out of the 19 participants. They included the exceptionally-named Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, who would go on to become Viceroy Of India.
125 years ago – 1901, won by Grudon
It is unconfirmed whether Willie Mullins purchased some emergency Lurpak last year. If he did, he would only have been the second trainer to use butter to his advantage in the Grand National.
The remarkable resource grandnationalultimatehistory.com delightfully describes the 1901 Grand National as “a dreadful and farcical renewal”. King Edward VII owned the defending champion (he was Prince Of Wales when Ambush II won in 1900), but traditions of the time dictated he could not run Ambush due to the period of mourning following his mother, Queen Victoria’s, death.
That is only a small element of the farce. For the 1901 Grand National was run in an historic snowstorm.
Despite this, 24 horses competed and Grudon went down in history for his dairy-enhanced antics. His trainer Bernard Bletsoe packed his hooves with butter, enabling him to glide serenely across the icy Aintree turf and win by four lengths.
Grudon’s jockey Arthur Nightingall recalled a remarkable portend when he later published a book. He said that “the only mistake he made was about 200 yards from the winning post, with his race well won, when he jumped a footpath”. Fortunately, no horse would ever do something as ridiculous under a latter-to-be author in the Grand National in, say, 1956.
100 years ago – 1926, won by Jack Horner
British Pathé is one of those delightfully quaint phenomena of this country’s culture. It enables us to watch some of the 1926 Grand National in its awe-inspiring glory. And thank goodness, because Aintree that year was peculiarly foggy.
It is recommended viewing if only to witness the size of Becher’s Brook. It’s enormous. That said, the final fence looks no bigger than it did today and the footage sets up a grandstand finish.
Jack Horner ultimately prevailed for Tasmanian jockey William Watkinson, improving on his seventh-placed effort in 1925. Watkinson tragically died in a fall just three weeks later.
Continuing the progression in field sizes, 30 horses took to the start of the 1926 Grand National, with just five finishers. Only one horse, Knight Of The Wilderness was trained in Ireland. 100 years on, it is more likely only one horse be trained in Britain.
75 years ago – 1951, won by Nickel Coin
When Limerick Lace went off joint favourite for the 2024 Grand National, we did not reckon with the history standing in her way. For Nickel Coin, way back in 1951, was the last mare to win the Grand National.
Remember how the fences were a complaint in 1876? Well in 1951 it was false starts. We still haven’t fixed them, but even by today’s standards, starter Leslie Firth let the side down. The Pathé footage has gained some sound by this point and the narrator lambasts him.
Several horses were inconvenienced leading to 12 of the 36-strong field coming to grief at the first. Where some old school Grand Nationals are worth watching, the first fence carnage is, conversely, fairly unpalatable. Remarkably, every horse is up on its feet in moments.
A further 16 had departed by Valentine’s, with only five still going from the Chair. All five were priced at 33/1 or higher and only two are left going to the Canal Turn.
Three finish, with Nickel Coin effectively winning a match with Royal Tan. Derrinstown was remounted to finish third. No Grand National since has featured as few finishers, although one will come close. More on that later.
50 years ago – 1976, won by Rag Trade
Threats to the Grand National’s future are nothing new. The 1976 renewal was the first in which Aintree was under no cloud for many a year after Ladbrokes took over management of the event.
The headline is that Red Rum is beaten. Gamely attempting to win back his crown having lost it to L’Escargot in 1975, the 11-year-old fails only by two lengths to peg back Rag Trade. Under 11st 10lb, his chance to become the first ever three-time winner of the Grand National has surely now passed.
Many of the jockeys are more notable than the horses in 1976. One Nicky Henderson completes the course in last aboard Indian Diva. Jonjo O’Neill and Mouse Morris are also in the saddle this year, but do not complete.
Another who fails to get round is the 18th Duke Of Alburquerque. Long before Walter White was tearing up the scene, Beltrán Alfonso Osorio y Díez de Rivera was Alburquerque’s greatest export. Born in Madrid, he was transfixed by old footage of the Grand National as a child.
He thus made it his life’s mission to fall in as many Grand Nationals as possible. He succeeded, but this was one too many as he broke 7 ribs and vertebrae, his right wrist and femur, as well as suffering a severe concussion.
25 years ago – 2001, won by Red Marauder
“You can wash the mud off the jockeys’ silks, but not the stain off the race.” So wrote the late Alastair Down about the 2001 Grand National.
The great race is no longer like this. It does not celebrate its victims, but its finishers. Some will bemoan that this has been to its detriment. But 2001 is a reminder that the public-facing display of National Hunt racing can no longer be like this.
If you did not recognise Ruby Walsh and AP McCoy in-running, you could easily confuse this for being a remastered, colourised edition of a race long gone. That it took place this century is exceptional in some ways. Fence after fence they vanish, leaving seven for the second circuit. There are two left from the 20th.
This was not a race, as outlined by the gaps between finishers: “a distance, a distance, a distance”. Red Marauder was the iron horse, guided home more than 30 lengths clear under Richard Guest. Smarty was game enough to jump round without mishap in second. McCoy and Walsh completed a few minutes later having remounted.
It is a shocking spectacle without question. All 40 horses returned safely to their boxes, but it is a race which left its mark.
10 years go – 2016, won by Rule The World
Yes, 2016 is a decade ago.
Rule The World ran in 15 chases. He only won one of them. That it was the Grand National owed to the superb patience of Mouse Morris. 40 years on from falling in the race as a jockey, he had trained the winner.
It was not for want of trying that he had not won: he was second in the 2015 Irish Grand National the year before. But this was his moment and David Mullins became the first Mullins in the saddle to ride the winner.
Already a nine-year-old, he ran at the Punchestown Festival in a novice Grade 1, just 17 days later. In on the joke by this point, he finished sixth and never raced again.