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Zorro has a point though, you could argue that the Melbourne Cup is the sport’s nearest thing to a "jewel in the crown".
What?
poxy handicap in the back of beyond…
How many racing fans from around the world could name the last winner?
National got me into racing. Mr Snugfit finishing second in the early eighties (or was it Young Snugfit?)
My families roots are in Southport so we always watched Red Rum. Dad was a schoolmate of Ginger MccainBet you all found that interestimg…
I have mixed feelings about the race. Seeing horses collapse doesnt get any easier and the whole overblown coverage becomes tiresome. Yes its a "public race" but would rather that a more conventional race held that crown.
Unfortunately my memory only extends back to Rough Quest’s National in 1996 (my first racing memory), watching in my Grandmother’s house the elation that surrounded Mick Fitz et al. However, I already have National memories that will live with me forever, and there is no other race that gets me anywhere near as nervously excited.
It’s a thought that goes through my mind as they parade every year- in 20 minutes time, one of those handicappers there will be immortalised, and they don’t even know it yet!If the Melbourne Cup is the jewel in the crown, then it’s a paste-and-paper crown mouldering in the window of a charity shop.
First National memory – my mother very upset because Grey Sombrero was killed in a fall at the Chair in 1973. I must have watched thousands of races but the National, the Gold Cup and the Derby are the only three that get me agitated beforehand.
There’s your three jewels in the Triple Crown
As regards my own personal memories of the race, I can certainly remember seeing the 1980 renewal on telly with my folks. Then, as now, they remain essentially non-racing people, but they’d always take in the National each year, and they hadn’t seen anything especially alarming in the interest in the other terrestrial racing coverage (ITV Seven et al) that I’d already appeared to have cultivated even at the age of five and a bit.
The joys of a liberal upbringing, I got bets put on me in the race almost as soon as mum and dad had explained to me that this is what many people do on it! At this remove I couldn’t tell you why I badgered dad to put 50p on Delmoss for me that year, though I’d suggest the analytical skills of a five year-old don’t bear the closest scrutiny.
Either way, I know I didn’t get much of a run for my money as the yoke fell before the race got serious.
Nevertheless, the thrill and the savage beauty of the contest was apparent even to those young senses – there was certainly something very different about it next to the park course fare I’d seen Ken Butler, John Oaksey and cohorts introduce me to in the preceding weeks. A love affair with the race had very definitely commenced.
Certain names, faces and events have certainly left a greater mark in the memory than others in the following years. The next three renewals alone retain tangible personal significance. Aldaniti gave me my first ever winning bet – to similarly small stakes – in 1981. Geraldine Rees hauling Cheers home a year after that is still a vivid memory, too, not least because any female jockey riding in the race never went unnoticed in the household (dad routinely put a pound on all of them, for reasons best known to himself). Thirdly, Bonum Omen’s otherwise innocuous pulling-up at halfway in 1983 was significant as the only bet my little brother has ever had on the horses, since when he has actively cultivated a dislike of and opposition to the sport – there’s nothing worse than a sore loser.
I could prattle on interminably about most, if not all, of the 24 further renewals since then. Suffice it to say for now that after all these years of following it as a wide-eyed fan, I’ve been exceptionally fortunate to be able to cover the National in a paid-for capacity since the 2006 renewal, and the race owes me more than I’ll probably ever realise in terms of helping shape my racing education.
I genuinely hope that a fair, thrilling and above all carnage-free race does the same for thousands more National newbies the world over this afternoon.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Strictly from a racing fan’s point of view and from a NH perspective, I have always considered the Cheltenham Gold Cup to be the real jewel in the crown.
That said, there can be no denying that The Grand National is the one race above all (even more so than The Derby) which captivates the British public – and viewers around the globe. It is the one horse race (apart from the Melbourne Cup) when non racing fans take an active interest. It has all the ingredients surrounding it : the hype, the anticpation, the excitement and intensity, the uncertainty, the calamity, the bravery of horse and jockey… and that feeling of utter joy or anti climax when it is all over and your selection/s has won or has refused or hit the deck.
I never treat the race as a serious betting medium, but nonetheless, I love it just the same.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
I must have watched thousands of races but the National, the Gold Cup and the Derby are the only three that get me agitated beforehand. There’s your three jewels in the Triple Crown.
Agreed, but not in that order.
As for the Melbourne Cup. I think you could argue in favour of Venusian’s interesting point in terms of the sheer crossover impact the race has with civilians who bet once per year. Only the National is remotely comparable here.
That whole country stops for the Melbourne Cup and for that one day, everyone is a punter. We used to go someway toward a national consensus with the Derby before the brainless Tobys at the Jockey Club moved the world’s greatest race to a Saturday: the single most incredible horse racing decision of my lifetime.
And why is jumps racing concentrated in so few countries, Jeremy? Mustn’t forget Japan, by the way, where it flourishes to a certain extent although it’s a lot less popular than the Flat.
I remember there used to be an Australian Grand National. Don’t think it exists anymore.
How many Derbys are there in the world? Has anyone ever counted?Yeats, to answer your question, yes it’s the same chap. I don’t see any contradiction in holding the two beliefs: that the Grand National provides ammunition for racing’s critics, and that judgement on whether whip abuse is taking place should be based on whether the horse is able to respond.
Or hypocrisy either. Surprised you do actually.And why is jumps racing concentrated in so few countries, Jeremy?
I wouldn’t presume to have all the answers for you on that one, Mr Z, but I’d personally regard holding up territories in the world with little / no jumps racing infrastructures as places where they "don’t bother trying to copy it" is a bit like berating Saharan African countries for not bothering to let penguins flourish in the wild.
It’s just how things have developed, I suppose.
Mustn’t forget Japan, by the way, where it flourishes to a certain extent
Indeed not, and it would be nice to visit the country for the Nakayama Grand Jump before I eventually buy the farm; but in terms of numerical quantity of jumps races, and indigenous steeplechasing bloodstock, it still has a little way to go to establish itself globally, I’d venture.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
I wasn’t holding them up as such, Mr.Grayson. I was just wondering why all the other countries in which there is racing don’t look at the Grand National and think to themselves ‘Gosh, we must have one of those’.
The absence of jumping stock, if that really is indispensable (wasn’t the horse who beat Crisp flat bred?) could quite easily be corrected if the will was there.Noted, Mr Z, and many thanks for the responses to date. I may have done you a minor disservice in assuming that your motives for asking the question weren’t entirely pure as a confessed non-jumps fan – except where Quixall Crossett was concerned for a while, of course, judged on the authors of some of my press cuttings of the old boy.
I suppose certain forms of the sport just don’t travel as well as others, even if there is little reason why they couldn’t. If the establishing of bred-for-purpose stock isn’t as fundamental to the development of a type of racing in a new territory as I suggested it might be (and I may require a little more convincing than yourself on that – I’m reluctant to argue a stronger case for any Flat-breds in today’s race on the evidence of Red Rum striking three blows for the kind when others have not), one may as well wonder why, for example, there hasn’t been a greater push for something like Quarter races to take off over here.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
From Aintree to two furlong races at Prairie Downs. And it only took us two pages to get there.
Advantage Zorro! A pleasure to debate with you, good sir.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Isn’t the breeding of horses, especially NH, an inexact science? Wasn’t Red Rum sprint bred? And know he dead heated at Aintree as a 2-y-o under Lester Piggott – who incidentally was bred to be NH jockey, though didn’t make bad job of a Flat jockey.
You too,Mr.Grayson sir. And by the way, you were probably right to suspect my motives. I’ve never forgiven the race for Crisp.
My families roots are in Southport so we always watched Red Rum. Dad was a schoolmate of Ginger Mccain
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