tiger roll.

​‘The Tiger’, as he will forever be known, doesn’t play by the rules, does he? Tell him Grand National winners should forever go into decline and he pokes out his tongue and rolls his eyes, his expression one of ‘humans, what do you know? I am the Tiger. I invent my own rules.’
In the same manner Red Rum’s had unorthodoxy stamped all over him – trained on the sands of Southport by a part-time car salesman – Tiger Roll’s path to immortality is unorthodox, too. He may be trained by a Goliath of the training profession and owned by a man with one of the largest strings of horses in the history of the sport but as with Red Rum he was bred for a different branch of racing, his preparation for Aintree gained through the rather looked-down-upon cross-country races held not in Ireland, where they are more revered than criticised, but at Cheltenham, the home of champions.
It just goes to show how over-priced young National Hunt stock have become when ‘little Gods’ like Tiger Roll can be bought for £80,000.
For 3-miles 6-furlongs, the distance of the Cheltenham Cross-Country race, Tiger Roll tanked along, almost whistling a merry tune as he galloped and jumped, and for a similar distance at Aintree yesterday he was pulling Davy Russell’s arms from their socket, only consenting ‘to takes things a little more seriously’ when it came to putting the absolutely marvellous ‘Magic of Light’ in her place.
Incidentally I had a dream a month or so ago that a mare won the Grand National and had planned to back Ms Parfois because she seemed the likely candidate. I would have been gutted if Magic of Light had won, and not only because she would have denied The Tiger his place in sporting and racing history.
As things stand, we will perhaps never know how good a horse, at least in the grand scheme of things, Tiger Roll actually is. Red Rum was never tried in Gold Cups and unless their hand is forced by circumstance into running Tiger Roll in a Gold Cup trial to have him ready for the Glenfarclas next year, we shall always have to judge Tiger Roll by his official rating. Not that it matters if he could be placed in a Gold Cup or win a Ladbrokes Trophy. He is now Tiger Roll, back-to-back Grand National winner, truly a horse of a lifetime.
On a day that was historic for the sport and when 19 horses finished the race and with few actual fallers, it was sad for both the race and especially the luckless Wylies that Up For Review lost his life yesterday. Vintage Clouds fell behind Up For Review and without really knowing for sure it might be he was brought down rather than fell himself. How he attained his injury may seem unimportant compared to his death. I just hope the inquest, as it should be described rather than inquiry, exonerates the fence, though when a horse dies when in servitude to man’s entertainment we, both the participant and viewer, are always held partially to blame.
Although I remain half-hearted in my approval of the change to the National fences, even I cannot deny the spectacle remains just as glorious as in the days of Red Rum and to have virtually all the field jumping the Chair without incident and heading off on a second circuit is clearly both beneficial to the race and to the sport but justifies the wisdom of the alterations.
Of course, photographers will now only rarely achieve pictures of jockeys flying through the air and horse’s upside down in ditches. That, though, is all to the good. The danger to horse and jockey is now similar to the day-to-day risks the sport imposes on participants, which is also to the good.
The day, though, belonged to Tiger Roll and Davy Russell, a jockey whose career will now be defined not by a long and successful career but by the name of one horse, as it was for Brian Fletcher and Tommy Stack, two successful jockeys known for nothing else but Red Rum. The similarities between Red Rum and Tiger Roll are remarkable. Both are flat-bred, relatively cheaply bought, - Red Rum cost £6000 guineas, the equivalent of £60,000 in today’s money - were both aged eight and nine when they won their first two Grand Nationals, and though Red Rum carried 12-stone when he won his second National, the combined weight of their two wins would be very close to equal. And neither of their trainers were born either with a silver spoon in their mouths or into families with close ties to the sport.
I hope Michael O’Leary will not remain obstinate in his declaration that he will retire Tiger Roll after next year’s Cheltenham Cross-Country race as he now owns the only horse of all our lifetimes who might win 3 consecutive Grand Nationals. Wow! Didn’t ever think I might live to see Red Rum’s achievements not only emulated but surpassed!
Now that is a dream I would totally dismiss as too far-fetched.