a unique grand national winner.

​We should, of course, if it were not for this dreadful Covid-19 virus and the over-the-top restrictions on civil liberty, be looking forward to the 2020 running of the Aintree Grand National, which was slated to take place next weekend. But by deed of the heavy-hand of the B.H.A., whereas the administrators of other top-line sports have decided to postpone, the race is cancelled, abandoned without remorse as if it were as of as little consequence as a 2-year-old seller at Redcar. But the lack of foresight by racing’s overlords, the neglect of duty to the long-term welfare of the sport, is another issue altogether.
In reconditioning the Grand National to better suit the ignorant minority, the race has lost a bucket-load of the romance that once upon time walked hand-in-hand with its history. In 1938, for instance, a horse won the race that upon retirement went on to sire 8 stakes winners, plus another that won the American Grand National. It would take a stretch of imagination to suggest any one of us will see the likes of Battleship again.
Battleship was by Man o’ War, America’s greatest ever racehorse and won 10 out of his 22 starts on the flat. As a 4-year-old he was bought by Marion DuPont Scott, heiress to the DuPont chemical empire. Marion was wife, perhaps only out of convenience, though that is only conjecture, of the movie star Randolph Scott. Marion was a keen jumps enthusiast all her life, a rare breed in America, even then, and something in the diminutive entire suggested to her that he would make a steeplechaser.
She was correct as Battleship went on to win all the top steeplechases in his homeland, including the American Grand National. Marion DuPont, though, had always had a fascination with the Aintree Grand National, finishing 15th in 1933 with Trouble Maker, the race won by the American owner Ambrose Clark with Kellsboro Jack.
In July 1936 she had Battleship cross the Atlantic to England. In his first season here, he won 3 of his 13 starts, winning at Sandown, Newbury and Leicester. It was a brave and sporting venture as the horse was in his prime, with the top American steeplechases easily within his grasp. But when Aintree enters the heart and imagination of a true steeplechasing enthusiast, especially when money is no object, the heart will always overrule the head. They didn’t make the 1937 Grand National, though,won by Royal Mail, as neither the trainer nor the jockey, father and son, Reg and Bruce Hobbs, thought him ready for such a test. In fact Reg Hobbs never thought the little horse up to jumping round Aintree and if the horse had not travelled so far and the owner invested so much time, money and effort into the project, it is doubtful if he were ever to be entered in the race, let alone take his chance. But that is where romance overrules sense.
The little horse couldn’t see over most of the fences and went down on his nose so often during the race and that he returned with so much blood on his face it was suspected he had broken a blood vessel and at the Canal Fence he skewed sideways, saving ground, of course, to such a degree that he took his young jockey by surprise and if was not for the tenacity and generosity of spirit displayed by Fred Rimell who riding upsides Hobbs stretched out a hand and hoisted the young man back into the saddle. But what Battleship lacked in size he made up for in courage, outbattling Royal Danieli in a photo-finish in what until then was one of the fastest times on record, 9-minutes and 27-seconds. He was 11-years-old and carried 11st-6Ibs.
He was the first blinkered horse to win the race. He was the smallest horse to win the race at 15-hands, 1 (or 2 depending on which account you read) and Bruce Hobbs was, and remains, the youngest jockey to win the great race. He returned to New York a sporting hero, never to race again.
As a stallion he sired 58 foals, so to begat 8 individual stakes winners, plus two good steeplechasers in War Battle and Shipboard, plus an American Grand National winner, Sea Legs, makes him one-of-a-kind in steeplechasing history. He lived to the grand age of 31 and is buried alongside Trouble Maker at the DuPont’s old farm and stables at Montpelier. To ensure his legend lives long into the future, Marion DuPont demanded that the inscription on his grave-marker was gouged deep into the stone. He deserved no less.