the long-ago days of merryman, freddie and grittar.

​Usually at this time of year, post Cheltenham, pre classic trials, my thoughts are focused 100% on Aintree and the Grand National. Not so much this year. Since a young child, the Grand National has been the centre of my racing world, with no other race coming within touching distance in terms of fascination and awe. Since Suleka Varma’s appointment as clerk of the course, my fascination with the great race has become evermore tinged with sadness for what is being lost to her unthinking approach of ‘death by a thousand cuts’, the needless and pointless tinkering in an effort to transform spectacle, derring-do, romance and adventure into an impression of what used to be. In short, Miss Varma and her advisors are in search of a miracle cure for ever-present risk, to make a dangerous pursuit safe and effective for the purpose of protecting the cash-cow that is the Grand National.
I always worry that the dark cloud of fate will descend on the race, to shroud it as a bad-news story. The glory of conquering Aintree’s unique fences and topography is always tainted when it is announced that a horse has suffered a fatal injury during the race. In loving the sport, I must accept that injuries and fatalities to both horse and rider are an unforgiving factor, as it is of every minute, hour and day for horse and man alike in every walk and department of life. As it is for those who love and document war. Up and including the 1st World War as many horses would be killed in battle, or simply slaughtered for meat rations, as soldiers. We live in different times.
There was a time when I tried to have Aintree erect a memorial plaque to horses that had died taking part in the great race. I also asked for a horse cemetery at Aintree, so the fallen, in the military sense, would never be forgotten. Both ideas were batted-away as ‘undoable’, the official policy cynical, ‘better to sweep such things under the carpet and not talk about them’. Now, the policy is to persuade the ignorant public that the focus is on safety and welfare. The death of a horse nowadays, under the leadership of Miss Varma, will doubtless result in more tinkering, more shedding-away of the tradition and uniqueness that has made the Grand National the greatest horse race in the world. I fear in short-time the race will be reduced to twenty-runners, with the fences looking more like the old Mildmay course, the Canal Turn euthanised and replaced by a smooth bend, the Chair no more testing than a child’s stool, the distance reduced to 3-miles.
I have used the names of Merryman, Freddie and Grittar in the title of this piece, as they represent the romance and adventure no longer thought necessary by the custodians of the race. Because of the ever-rising minimum rating required to achieve the opportunity of making the start for the Grand National, what is being lost is the romance of the hunter-chaser, owned, trained and perhaps ridden by rock-solid point-to-point people who through good fortune and skill had stumbled-upon a ‘National horse’.
Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott or Paul Nicholls winning the race will never attract the attention of the outside media, not in the same way as when Grittar won for Frank Coton and Dick Saunders. The little man, barely known to punters and racing enthusiasts alike, triumphing on the biggest stage in racing, putting one over on the mega-stables, the big-hitters.
Merryman won the Aintree Foxhunters the year before he triumphed in the Grand National in 1960. Freddie was everyone’s hope for both the 1965 and 1966 Grand Nationals, finishing runner-up to Jay Trump and then Anglo, Reg Tweedie, owner/trainer defeated both times by Fred Winter, perhaps the best known man in racing at the time, a legend of the sport.
Spartan Missile, ridden by owner, breeder and trainer, Mr. John Thorne was an unlucky loser in 1981 when the fateful gods allowed the sport to bask in the glory of cancer-survivor Bob Champion virtually rising from the dead to win on Aldiniti.
And sporting glory is not only achieved by the victors. Does anyone remember Rosemary Henderson’s mighty performance in finishing fifth on her own horse Fiddler’s Pike in 1994? There were others who came from the point-to-point field to go to Aintree with favourite’s chance or as a good long-shot. Double Silk comes to mind and Forest Gunner, if my memory serves me correctly. And many more if you go back into the 1920’s and through to the 1990’s.
My fear, you see, even if I do not live to witness it, is that the Grand National will stop being the ‘peoples’ race’ and all that the tinkering in pursuit of an impossible miracle is achieving is to destroy all or part of what has made the race the institution it is within the sporting calendar. Change for change’s sake always goes pear-shaped. A yellow carrot may still be a carrot but it sure does not look right, and that is the path Miss Varma is taking.
Of course, Gina Andrews and Latenightpass may gallop to victory in two-weeks-time and I will have egg all over me. And I sincerely hope Gina and her husband do succeed as it will provide the good-news story the race has lacked, apart from Rachael Blackmore, of course, for too many years. And perhaps will never achieve again.