News and Media

As the best-known steeplechase in the world, with an estimated worldwide audience of 500 million, the Grand National requires little or no introduction. However, it is worth noting that, in recent years, the annual Aintree showpiece has undergone a raft of safety-related changes, not only to the Grand National Course, but also to the race conditions. Among other eligibility criteria, Grand National entries must now be at least seven years old, while jockeys must have ridden at least 15 winners under the Rules of Racing, including at least 10 in steeplechases.

Consequently, unless the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has a major change of heart at some point in the future, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the records for the youngest horse and the youngest jockey to win the Grand National could never be broken. As it stands, the record for the youngest horse to win is held, jointly, by five five-year-olds, namely Alcibiade (1865), Regal (1876), Austerlitz (1877), Empress (1880) and Lutteur III (1909). For the record, the last six-year-old to win the National was Ally Sloper in 1915 and the last seven-year-old to win was Bogskar in 1940.

The record for the youngest jockey to win the Grand National is still held by Bruce Robertson Hobbs, who was 17 years, 2 months and 27 days old when, on March 25, 1938, he partnered Battleship, trained by his father, Reg, to victory in a driving finish. Hobbs owed his victory, in part, to a push on the backside from fellow jockey Fred Rimmell, which prevented him from being unseated at the seventh fence, now known as ‘Foinavon’. Battleship, for his part, was derisorily dismissed by the ‘Sporting Life’ of the day because of his diminuitive size, but he did, indeed, become ‘the smallest winner in history’.

The short answer is yes, it is. In fact, Frederick Thomas ‘Fred’ Winter won the Grand National twice as a trainer and twice as a jockey. Born in Andover, Hampshire, on September 20, 1926, Winter was a force majeure in British National Hunt throughout the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties. In August 1987, he suffered a second stroke, which left him paralysed down one side and unable to speak, therby effectively ending his training career.

 

Nevertheless, aside from his Grand National victories, Winter also won the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times, twice as a jockey, with Saffron Tartan (1961) and Mandarin (1962), and once as a trainer, with Midnight Court (1978). He also won the Champion Hurdle seven times, three times as a jockey, with Clair Soleil (1955), Fare Time (1959) and Eboneezer (1961), and four times as a trainer, with Bula (1971 and 1972), Lanzarote (1974) and Celtic Shot (1988). He remains the only person to win all three prestigious races in both capacities.

 

At the time of his retirement from the saddle, in April 1964, Winter had ridden a then-record 923 winners and won the National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship four times, in 1952/53 and three seasons running between 1955/56 and 1957/58. Indeed, he was reigning Champion Jockey when he won the Grand National for the first time on Sundew in 1957 and followed up with Kilmore in 1962.

 

As a trainer, Winter occupied the historic Upland Stables in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire for the whole of his career. Between 1970/71 and 1984/85, he won the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship at total of eight times, but was fortunate enough to have won the Aintree Grand National at the first, and second, time of asking. In 1965, he saddled American import Jay Trump to a narrow victory in the celebrated steeplechase and, in 1966, repeated the dose with Anglo, who beat the luckless Freddie – who had also finished second the previous year – by 20 lengths.

 

 

 

 

 

In the history of the Grand National, no obstacle has caused more controversy than Becher’s Brook. Jumped as the sixth and twenty-second fence on the National Course, Becher’s Brook is named after Martin William Becher, a.k.a. Captain Becher, who was thrown into the brook by his mount, Conrad, during the inaugural running of the Grand National in 1839. In its heyday, Becher’s Brook consisted of a stiff, five-foot high post and rail fence with an eight-foot wide, water-filled ditch beyond and a three-foot drop on the landing side. In fact, it was once likened to ‘jumping off the edge of the world’.

However, Becher’s Brook has been significantly modified, in the name of safety, down the years and, despite being described by the RSPCA as a ‘killer fence’ as recently as 2012, is no longer the formidable obstacle that it once was. Three decades ago the ditch was partially filled in and the fence straightened and, more recently, the landing side of the fence was levelled, on more than one occasion, to make the obstacle more accommodating to horse and rider.

Nevertheless, the apparently innocuous – at least, from the take-off side – 4’10” fence still features a drop of between 5″ and 10″ on the landing side, such that horses descend, steeply, from an effective height of 6’9″. Getting in close and ‘fiddling’ over the fence is not really an option for jockeys, because of the difficulty in keeping horses balanced on landing, so Becher’s Brook remains a daunting obstacle.