Author: admin

The Grand National may not be, as Clare Balding once put it, ‘the bloodletting madness that it was’, but nonetheless remains a unique, but fair, challenge for horse and rider. Significant, and often controversial, changes to the Grand National course, conditions, etc., aimed at promoting the safety of participants, have been criticised by some traditionalists, but the Grand National is, no doubt, a much higher-class affair than was once the case.

With the weights compressed in recent years, horses carrying 11 stones, or more, have fared better than had previosuly. Following a 22-year hiatus between Corbiere (1983) and Hedgehunter (2005), seven horses – Mon Mome (2009), Don’t Push It (2010), Ballabriggs (2011), Neptune Collonges (2012), Many Clouds (2015), Tiger Roll (2019) and I Am Maximus (2024) – in the last 18 runnings of the Grand National have all carried at least 11st 0lb to victory at Aintree.

As far as weights carried in the National are concerned, it is worth noting that the maximum weight to be carried was reduced to 12st 0lb in 1956, 11st 12lb in 2002 and 11st 10lb in 2009, before being increased back to 11st 12lb in 2023. In early times, Cloister (1893), Manifesto (1899), Jerry M (1912), Poethlyn (1919) all won the Grand National under 12st 7lb. Manifesto deserves another honourable mention, too, for humping 12st 13lb into third place on his return to Aintree in 1900. The highest weight ever carried in the Grand National, though, was the eye-watering 13st 4lb shouldered by the 1939 winner Lottery when he tried again in 1941; he failed to complete the course, pulling up on the second circuit.

The late Frederick ‘Fred’ Winter, who died on April 5, 2004, was a force majeure in National Hunt racing for three decades, first as a jockey, and latterly as a trainer. Among his many other acccolades, Winter remains the only man to have won the Champion Hurdle, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National as both jockey and trainer.

As far as the Cheltenham Gold Cup is concerned, Winter has three winners to his name, two as a jockey and one as a trainer. As a jockey, he opened his account on Saffron Tartan, trained by Don Butchers, who justified favouritism in 1961, beating his nearest market rival, Pas Seul, trained by Bob Turnell and ridden by Dave Dick by a length and a half. The following year, Winter rode Mandarin, trained by Fulke Walwyn, who had finished third in 1961, but went two places better when beating dual Champion Chase winner Fortria, trained by Tom Dreaper and ridden by Pat Taaffe, by a length.

Winter retired from race riding in 1964 and, rather reluctantly, turned his hand to training. Remarkably, though, he saddled the winner of the Grand National, in each of his first two seasons, Jay Trump in 1965 and Anglo in 1966. It was not until 1977/78, the season in which he would win the seventh of his eight trainers’ titles, that Winter would win his one and only Cheltenham Gold Cup with Midnight Court, ridden by his stable jockey John Francome.

Arguably the most famous horse race in the world, the Grand National was founded in the first half of the nineteenth century, while the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup did not come into existence until the second half of the twentieth century. The latter race still exists, as the Coral Gold Cup, run over three-and-a-quarter miles at Newbury in late November or early December, as it has been since 1960, but was actually established at Cheltenham in 1957. Hennessy ceased to be the title sponsor in 2016, so, strictly speaking, the Hennessy Gold Cup and the Grand National co-existed for sixty years.

In that period, just one horse won both races. That horse was the ill-fated Many Clouds, who tragically collapsed and died after winning the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham in January 2017; an autopsy revealed that a severe pulmonary haemorrhage was the cause of his death.

Many Clouds carried the familiar yellow, green and white colours of the late Trevor Hemmings and was trained at Rhonehurst Stables in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire by Oliver Sherwood. Described by the latter as a ‘natural chaser’, the Cloudings gelding stayed on strongly to win the Hennessy Gold Cup on November 29, 2014 and followed up in the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham on January 24, 2015. He disappointed in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March, finishing a distant sixth behind Coneygree, but returned to winning form at Aintree the following month, winning the Grand National under 11st 9lb in the second fastest time ever.

For readers unfamiliar with the exploits of Rooster Booster – and, in fairness, he did run his last race two decades ago – he was a popular grey gelding who won 10 of his 46 races under National Hunt Rules, but is best remembered for winning the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival on March 11, 2003. Indeed, that was his second successive Festival success, having won the Vincent O’Brien County Handicap Hurdle the previous year, but ultimately proved to be the only Grade 1 victory of his career.

Foaled on April 1, 1994, Rooster Booster was initially trained by his original owner, Richard Mitchell, having been bred by his wife, Elsie, at their East Hill Stables in Piddletrenthide, Dorset. The Riverwise gelding made an inauspicious start to his racing career, when, as an unconsidered 50/1 chance, he finished seventh of 18 in a National Hunt Flat Race at Wincanton on February 25, 1999. Having hung badly left inside the final half a mile, he was unable to recover, eventually finishing 31 lengths behind the winner, Mestre Sala.

Rooster Booster opened his account in a maiden hurdle at Taunton on January 6, 2000, but was subsequently acquired by leading owner Terry Warner, in whose yellow and black colours he would eventually win the Champion Hurdle. However, following his transfer to Somerset trainer Philip Hobbs in April 2000, Rooster Booster remained winless for 14 races and would not enter the winners’ enclosure again until the 2002 Cheltenham Festival. The trest, as they say is history and he made a low-key end to his career when fourteenth of 19 in the Greatwood Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham on November 13, 2005.