memories, some of them hazy, of aintree.

​My life and my love of horse racing runs in sync with the televising of the sport by the B.B.C.. Perhaps if television and horse racing had not formed its indelible partnership all those decades ago my life might have taken an all too different route.
I think 1961, the year Nicholas Silver won, ridden by Bobby Beasley and trained by Fred Rimell, was my first Grand National. I have no memory of Merryman winning in 1960, the first Grand National ever live broadcast of the race, with the same being the case in 1962 when Kilmore won under Fred Winter. Which makes it unlikely I watched, or indeed we had a television at the time, the 1961 race, especially as the race was run as early as March 25th and I would not have been 7-years-of-age until 3-weeks later. Yet my childhood hero, or at least the first jockey I favoured, was Bobby Beasley and I can only think this idolatry could not have come about if I had not been subject to his win on Nicholas Silver.
I think with any certainty, though with my memory certainty hardly exists, it was the 1964 renewal that came live into the living room of my Bristol home. The names do roll off the tongue as if embedded through ritual: Team Spirit, Purple Silk (looked all over the winner jumping the last) Peacetown, Eternal, Pontin-Go, Springbok, April Rose, Baxier, Crobeg, Pappageno’s Cottage, John O’Groats, Supersweet, Claymore, Out and About, Sea Knight. Incidentally, not a well-known fact, Pontin-Go had finished fourth in the 1962 Grand National under the name Gay Navaree. As you might guess, the horse was bought by holiday park owner Fred Pontin to achieve nation-wide attention for his business. He certainly succeeded.
The Aintree Grand National has been the central pivot of my year since Team Spirit’s victory. It has remained without question my favourite sporting event and its loss to hoax bomb threats, starter incompetence and government restrictions stretch my emotions to breaking point. To my mind Grand National Day should be a sporting national holiday. But that’s my enthusiasm getting the better of me. What should occur, and infinitely more doable if the big bookmakers would play ball, is that the Grand National should be linked to the raising of funds for animal and especially equine charities.
In those early televised years, the Grand National had a spine of romance running through the race. If it was not the Duke of Alberquerque trying every year just to get round and invariably ending-up in one of the local hospitals, it might be the presence of Hollywood film actor Gregory Peck hoping to lead into the winner’s enclosure one of his horses – Owen’s Sedge was seventh in 63 or Different Class that after a couple of abortive attempts finished third in 1968. Then there were the plucky Russian horses in 61, the Japanese horse Fujino-O in 1966, the galloping grandfather Tim Durant, the plucky re-mounters etc. Another world, back then. Little or no romance in the race these days.
Then, as now, my heart ruled my head. The best result for me in 2021 would be for one of the three female riders to win the race, not for any personal reasons, except that I harbour the hope to witness a female jockey win the race in my lifetime as I believe it would be the best result for the sport as it would promote the gender equality of horse racing. I absolutely loved Foinavon winning, even if I had backed Honey End that year, as it was a victory for a brave underdog, and Foinavon was brave to pick his way through the mayhem and keep galloping and jumping out on his own, as well as adding another great storyline to the roll-call of the Grand National. I wasn’t best pleased by the successes of either Jay Trump or Anglo (formerly known as Flag of Convenience), as by that time the horses had become my focal point of the sport and Freddie, runner-up to both, was the apple of my eye.
The greatest Grand National of all-time, and will always be recorded as such, I believe, was the 1973 race. Before March 31st, Crisp was not a great favourite of mine – at the time, and for a long time afterwards, Spanish Steps was my favourite horse and he finished an honourable fourth in 73 – but after 9-mins and 1.9 seconds from the start of the race Crisp nestled fondly in my heart. Crisp took hold of the fearsome black fences and had them surrender to the majesty of his performance. I know he didn’t win and at the time we couldn’t know that he had come within a whisker of achieving the impossible but as with the Stanley Matthews cup final, a game in which Stan Mortensen scored a hat-trick, the 1973 Grand National was Crisp’s Grand National. Of course, no horse ever born could have given Red Rum 23Ibs in a Grand National and beat him, yet Crisp so very nearly achieved the true impossible. It was a course record at the time; indeed, the first four home broke the old record, and the third and fourth were none other than the dual Gold Cup winner L’Escargot and the mighty Spanish Steps.
When I close my eyes for the last time on this Earth, I expect the image on my retina or mind’s eye will be that heart-breaking finish to the 1973 Grand National. I care nothing for a human heaven but I hope there is an equine heaven and that Crisp rules as king of all he surveys.