The Grand National

As the most famous steeplechase in the world, the Grand National requires little, or no, introduction. The advertised distance of the Aintree marathon may have been reduced to four miles and two-and-a-half furlongs – a furlong shorter than previously, following re-measurement of the National Course in 2016 – and the obstacles may have been ‘softened’ for safety purposes, but the race remains a formidable test of stamina and jumping ability. To win the Grand National horses must complete two circuits of the National Course, negotiate thirty obstacles, including the infamous Becher’s Brook, Canal Turn and The Chair, and retain enough stamina for the famously long, 494-yard run-in between the final fence and the winning post. In 2020 the Grand National was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This put on ice the Gordon Elliot trained Tiger Roll’s attempt to win three Grand Nationals in a row.

 

Aintree Racecourse, the home of the Grand National, was created by William Lynn, the proprietor of the Waterloo Hotel in Liverpool, in 1829. Lynn originally leased the land at Aintree from William Molynuex, Second Earl of Sefton, with the intention of staging Flat racing. However, prompted by the success of an existing steeplechase, known as the Great St. Albans Steeplechase, Lynn staged a precursor to the Grand National, known as the Liverpool Grand Steeplechase, or simply the Liverpool Steeplechase, for the first time in 1836. Interestingly, the inaugural running was won by The Duke, ridden by Captain Martin Becher, who famously sheltered in the brook at the fence which now bears his name during the first ‘official’ Grand National in 1839.

 

Although still known by its original title, the 1839 renewal was won by the aptly-named Lottery, trained by George Dockeray and ridden by Jem Mason. Originally a conditions or weight-for-age race, in which all the participants carried twelve stone, the Grand National became a handicap, under the influence of Edward Topham – who later acquired the lease and became Clerk of the Course at Aintree – in 1843. Aside from the years 1916-1918, when a substitute race, known as the ‘Racecourse Association Steeplechase’ and subsequently as the ‘War National’, was run at Gatwick Racecourse, 1941-1945, when the race was abandoned, and 1993, when the race was declared void after thirty jockeys failed to realise a false start had been called, the Grand National has been staged as a handicap at Aintree ever since.

Cheltenham Festival

For anyone involved in National Hunt racing in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, the Cheltenham Festival, staged annually in mid-March, is the meeting around which the whole season revolves. Originally known simply as the ‘National Hunt Meeting’, the Cheltenham Festival became a permanent fixture at Prestbury Park, on the northern outskirts of Cheltenham, in 1911. Under the auspices of Frederick Cathcart, Clerk of the Course, the Cheltenham Festival flourished.

 

The original two-day fixture was extended to three days in 1923 and the Cheltenham Gold Cup was inaugurated, as a steeplechase, in 1924. The Champion Hurdle, the two-mile hurdling championship, followed in 1927, but the other two events that constitute the ‘feature’ races at the modern fixture were much later addition to the Festival programme. The two-mile steeplechasing championship, originally known simply as National Hunt Two Mile Champion Chase, but renamed as the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1980, was inaugurated in 1959, and the long-distance hurdling championship, the Stayers’ Hurdle was inaugurated in 1972.

 

The Cheltenham Festival continued to evolve, with various races added and removed from the programme over the years, but the next major changes came in 2005, when it was extended to four days. At that stage, five new races, including the Grade One Ryanair Chase – effectively, an intermediate chasing ‘championship’– and the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase, were added and, more recently, supplemented by four more, making a total of 28.

 

Featuring a total of 12 races at Grade One level, at least three of which are staged on each of the four days, the Cheltenham Festival is, understandably, hugely popular with racegoers. Collectively, the four days attract over 200,000 spectators, including an estimated 10,000 from Ireland, and the famous Cheltenham ‘roar’ – that is, the cacophony of noise from the grandstands that greets the runners at the start of the opening race, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle – has been measured at nearly 120 decibels, or the same intensity as a firework display.

 

Mark Johnston

Glasgow-born Mark Johnston is a qualified veterinary surgeon and practised in that sphere for three years before purchasing his first training yard, Bank End Stables, near Louth, Lincolnshire in 1986. He took a public training licence in 1987 and saddled his first winner, Hinari Video, at Carlisle in July that year. The following year, Johnston bought his current yard, Kingsley Park, in Middleham, North Yorkshire, which he has subsequently developed into a major, state-of-the-art training complex, covering 300 acres and featuring some of the finest facilities in the country.

 

Johnson first saddled a hundred winners in a season in 1994 – the same year he won his first British Classic, the Two Thousand Guineas, with Mister Baileys – and went on to repeat that feat for 25 consecutive seasons. Indeed, in 2009, he became the first Flat trainer to saddle two hundred winners in a season and, once again, has gone on to repeat that feat in every season since, bar 2011 and 2016, in which he saddled 179 and 195 winners, respectively.Aside from Mister Baileys, Johnston also saddled another Classic winner, Attraction, in the One Thousand Guineas in 2004; three weeks later, Attraction also won the Irish One Thousand Guineas at the Curragh, making her the first filly in history to win both races.

 

On August 23, 2018, the victory of Poet’s Society in the Clipper Logistics Handicap at York brought up winner number 4,194, making Mark Johnston the most successful trainer, numerically, in the history of British horse racing. His career total beat the previous record set by Richard Hannon Snr., who was succeeded by his son, Richard Hannon Jnr., in 2003.

 

For all his success, Johnston has some contrary views on the relationship between horse racing, as a sport, and the betting industry. Despite betting being the raison d’être for horse racing – or, in other words, the reason its existence, in the first place – Johnston has argued that ITV, for example, “should get rid of all coverage of betting” from its terrestrial broadcasts of the sport.

Paul Nicholls

Paul Nicholls, who has trained at Manor Farm Stables in Ditcheat, Somerset since 1991, enjoyed a highly memorable season in 2018/19. On April 18, 2019, Nicholls reached the milestone of 3,000 National Hunt winners in Britain, when Kupatana won a mares’ novices’ chase at Cheltenham and, nine days later, became champion trainer for the eleventh time.

 

Formerly stable jockey and assistant trainer to David Barons, Nicholls first rose to prominence as a trainer in his own right when winning the leading trainer award at the Cheltenham Festival in 1999, courtesy of a notable treble in the Arkle Challenge Trophy, Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He had to wait until 2005/06 to become champion trainer for the first time but, following the retirement of the all-conquering Martin Pipe, dominated the trainers’ championship in every year, bar one, up to and including 2015/16.

 

Nicholls subsequently finished runner-up to his arch rival, Nicky Henderson, in 2016/17 and 2017/18, but saddled 135 winners and earned £3.3 million in prize money in 2018/19. At the end of the season, he said that his eleventh trainers’ title was probably his finest achievement, in light of the dearth of Grade One horses at Ditcheat in recent seasons.

 

Of course, down the years, Nicholls has been lucky enough to train numerous top-class steeplechasers and hurdlers, including Cheltenham Gold Cup winners Kauto Star and Denman, dual Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Master Mind, four-time Stayers’ Hurdle winner Big Buck’s and Grand National winner Neptune Collonges. Nevertheless, seasonal highlights in 2018/19 included winning the King George VI Chase with Clan Des Obeaux and the Ryanair Chase with Frodon; Nicholls, 57, appears at least as ambitious as ever and now has the record of 15 trainers’ titles, set by Martin Pipe, firmly in his sights.

Aidan O’Brien

Aidan O’Brien, 49, saddled a winner on his very first day as a trainer, when Wandering Thoughts won a handicap at Tralee in June, 1993. Thereafter, he won the Irish National Hunt Trainers’ Championship in five consecutive seasons between 1993/94 and 1997/98 and famously trained Istabraq to win the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival three years running in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

 

In 1996, Aidan O’Brien succeeded his namesake, Vincent O’Brien, as private trainer to John Magnier at Ballydoyle, near Cashel, Co. Tipperary and embarked on a career that would take him to the top of his profession, not just in Ireland, but worldwide. He registered his first Group One victory with Desert King, in the National Stakes at the Curragh, in September that year and his first Classic victory with the same horse in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, back at the Curragh, the following May.

 

O’Brien became Irish Champion Flat trainer for the first time in 1999 and has retained the title ever since. In 2001, he also became British Champion Flat trainer for the first time at the age of 32, making him the youngest ever, and the first Irishman since Vincent O’Brien, in 1971, to do so. All told, Aidan O’Brien has been British Champion Flat trainer six times, in 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2016 and 2017. Having won both the 1,000 Guineas and 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket in 2019, O’Brien has saddled a total of 34 British Classic winners; ten in the 2,000 Guineas, seven in the Oaks, six in the Derby and the St. Leger and five in the 1,000 Guineas.

 

Under the auspices of Magnier and his Coolmore Stud associates, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith – almost invariably referred to as ‘the lads’ – O’Brien has over 300 Group One victories to his name and has broken records year after year. In 2017, he saddled 28 Group One, or Grade One, winners in a single season, beating the previous record held by the late Robert J. Frankel and, in 2018 – the year in which he became Irish Champion Flat trainer for the twentieth consecutive time – saddled 152 winners in Ireland, smashing the previous record, of 139, set by Jim Bolger way back in 1992.

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