Is it correct that Fred Winter won the Grand National as a jockey and as a trainer?

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.

 

 

 

 

 

How many of the last 10 Grand National winners won a race after their Aintree victory?

  • Posted on October 14, 2024
  • /Under Horses

In the early years of the twenty-first century, it would be fair to say that something of a ‘hoodoo’ existed for Grand National winners, in terms of ever winning another race. In fact, after Bindaree, who won at Aintree in April 2002 and eventually followed up, ten starts later, in the Welsh National at Chepstow in December 2003, the next Grand National-winning horse to win again was Pineau De Re. A 5-length winner at Aintree in April 2014, as an 11-year-old, the Dr. Richard Newland-trained gelding popped up again, in a Pertemps Series Qualifier over hurdles at Carlisle in December 2015, before failing to complete the course on three of his last four starts.

In between Bindaree and Pineau De Re, though, a total of 13 Grand National winners failed to win again, collectively accumulating a total of 102 losing starts. Of course, Pineau De Re did manage to win again, as did the ultimately ill-fated Many Clouds, who shouldered 11st 9lb to victory at Aintree in 2015. In fact, the latter recorded three more wins, including what would have been a famous, rather than infamous, defeat of King George VI Chase winner Thistlecrack in the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham two years later, but for the fact that he tragically collapsed and died afterwards, having suffered a severe pulmonary haemorrhage.

Next up came Rule The World, trained in Co. Tipperary by Michael ‘Mouse’ Morris, who, in 2016, while still a maiden – albeit a high-class maiden – over regulation fences, belied his ‘novice’ status by winning the race often described as the ‘ultimate test for horse and rider’. A largely unconsidered 33/1 chance at Aintree, the 9-year-old survived a blunder at the penultimate open ditch, led inside the final half-a-furlong or so, and stayed on well to win by 6 lengths. In so doing, Rule The World became the first novice to win the Grand National since Mr. What in 1958. He raced just once more, finishing down the field in the Champion Novice Chase at Punchestown, less than three weeks later, before retirement.

The 2017 Grand National winner, One For Arthur, saddled by Lucinda Russell – and, therefore, just the second Scottish-trained winner, after Rubstic in 1979 – was another who failed to add to his winning tally. He did, however, finish a creditable, if somewhat remote, sixth behind Tiger Roll on his return to Aintree in 2019.

Ah, Tiger Roll. The winner of the Triumph Hurdle in 2014 and the National Hunt Chase in 2017, the diminutive Authorized gelding warmed up for his first attempt at the Grand National, in 2018, with yet another Cheltenham Festival win, in the Cross Country Chase. All out to win by a head on that occasion, despite holding a 6-length lead at the famous ‘Elbow’, halfway up the run-in, he nonetheless won the National again, off a 9lb higher mark, in 2019, justifying favouritism in the process. Denied the chance of an unprecedented hat-trick (in consecutive years, that is) by the Covid-19 pandemic, Tiger Roll never attempted the National again, but did add to his Festival tally with a facile, 18-length victory in the Cross Country Chase, again, in 2021.

The 2021 National winner, Minella Times, was another to make history, insofar as his jockey, Rachael Blackmore, became the first female jockey to win the Aintree showpiece. Brought down at Valentine’s Brook on the first circuit in the 2022 renewal, the son of high-class jumps sire Oscar was being prepared for another crack at the National in 2023, but suffered a training setback and was retired forthwith, as a 10-year-old, having never won again.

The two most recent National winners, Noble Yeats in 2022 and Corach Rambler in 2023, remain in training. The former has already won three times since and, at the time of writing, is a single-figure price for the Stayers’ Hurdle at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival, while the latter has had just two, unsuccessful, starts since, and remains co-favourite for the 2024 Grand National.

Melling Chase

The Melling Chase is a Grade 1 steeplechase run over 2 miles and 4 furlongs on the Mildmay Course at Aintree in early April. Open to horses aged five years and upwards, the race is currently sponsored by leading American stockbroker Marsh & McLennan and, hence, known as the Marsh Chase for sponsorship purposes. The officially registered title, though, comes from the nearby village of Melling in Sefton, Merseyside. The Melling Chase is currently scheduled as the fourth race on the second day of the three-day Grand National Festival, a.k.a. Ladies’ Day.

The Melling Chase was inaugurated, as a Grade 1 contest, in 1991 and has maintained that status throughout its lifetime. Indeed, the field often features horses that contested the Queen Mother Champion Chase or the Ryanair Chase at the Cheltenham Festival and the roll of honour includes the likes of Viking Flagship, Moscow Flyer, Master Minded, Sprinter Sacre and Politologue. Paul Nicholls, trainer of Master Minded and Politologue, and Nicky Henderson, trainer of Sprinter Sacre, have both saddled three winners apiece and are, jointly, the leading handlers in the history of the Melling Chase.

A total of half a dozen horses have won the Melling Chase twice, but the most recent to them, Fakir D’oudairies, who won back-to-back renewals in 2021 and 2022, may be in a position to attempt an unprecedented hat-trick in 2023. Joseph O’Brien’s Kapgarde gelding will still only be an 8-year-old by the time 3.25pm on Friday, April 8 rolls around, so it will be interesting to see how his season develops. Of course, top-class two-mile steeplechasers, such as Energumene, Shiskin and Edwardstone, are always possibilities while, from the ‘intermediate’ division, leading Ryanair Chase fancies Allaho and Galopin Des Champs are other possibilities.