One amazing hour – Aintree 1977

[betlarge]

Just an hour before Red Rum’s third Grand National, The Templegate Hurdle provided one of the greatest National Hunt battles ever as Night Nurse got up to dead-heat with Monksfield.

Watch the replay after the race has finished and ask yourself what length of ban Dessie Hughes and Paddy Broderick would have received by today’s standards! Broderick’s treatment of Night Nurse in particular makes me wince. Not just the amount of strikes but the position of them…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X2Ai77voXE&list=PL83B8513C36E4C8DD

Mike

[Coggy]

Agree totally Mike.
Night Nurse was my all time favourite hurdler.
Never personally rated Broderick as a jockey and generally thought that Night Nurse kept winning despite him, rather than aided by him.

[homersimpson]

Seemed to stop riding Monsfield about 10-20 yards from line for a split second which may have cost him the outright win. Mind you he must have been more knackered than the horse with all them smacks

[CarryOnKatie]

When did Aintree introduce the Photo-Finish (I know they were about the last course to do so)?

Just wondered as (albeit based on the slightly wobbly video tape) I would have given Monksfield the nod

[Steeplechasing]

An era when ‘horsemen’ were valued more highly than jockeys. Men like Broderick, Taaffe and King would have looked on finesse in a finish as a flashy accoutrement to their armoury.

Hughes looks reasonably stylish beside the agricultural flailing of PB, though no less forceful.

Ahh, those pre-PC days of concrete posts, wooden rails, ‘hard’ going and hard men. Old values. Broderick was born as World War 2 started. He rode his first winner in 1953. Ironically, Night Nurse’s crashing fall in the 1978 Christmas Hurdle ended PB’s career.

Different times right enough – if I recall correctly, without double-checking, Night Nurse went through the 1975/76 season unbeaten in 9 races. Yes, a champion hurdler turning out 9 times. The most startling factor in that stat, for me, at least, was the ground for those 9 runs: good or faster. Soft never featured in a description.

From @rse-warming to global warming in a generation.

Those were the days, my friends.

[cormack15]

Great horses and a golden era.

When you watch the jockeys they look prehistoric though. Small wonder Francome shone like a diamond when he came on the scene.

[Author]

Posts