I woke on THIS morning in 1981 as winner of the National... today there would be no fairytale, no film and no millions raised for charity
NO Grand National, no Grand National-winning jockey.
Circumstance has decreed that no rider woke this morning with a sore head and a fuzzy recollection of jumping 30 fences en route to glory in the world’s most famous steeplechase.
Imagine the same in 1981. Racing’s own version of It’s A Wonderful Life – Aldaniti and Bob Champion – erased from history.
And no Bob Champion Cancer Trust, which has now raised nearly £15million to fight the disease whose ‘worst’ ultimately wasn’t enough to beat Champion, after his July 1979 testicular cancer diagnosis had signalled the start of the fight.
“People think it was me who set it up, but it wasn’t – it was the people in this country,” said Champion, who 39 years ago yesterday partnered the Josh Gifford-trained Aldaniti to a four-length win over Spartan Missile at 10-1.
“When I won the National, people sent their winnings to me, care of the Royal Marsden, where I had received chemotherapy.
“There was quite a lot of money sent in, and Nick Embiricos, Aldaniti’s owner, and Professor Peckham, who was my doctor at the Marsden, said, ‘We’ve got to do something with it.
“They didn’t know what to do with it in the first place.
“But when it kept coming in, Nick, the professor and myself thought, ‘We’d better be professional about it.’
“And it just went on from there.”
Champion’s firm conviction that Aldaniti had what it took to win a National helped him through a harrowing 20-month struggle. He was originally given eight months to live by doctors. Now 71, he recalled: “I remember lying in hospital, near death sometimes, and thinking, ‘I want to get over this and ride Aldaniti’.
“I remember winning the Silver Fox Handicap Chase at Leicester on him and I got off and said to the owners and the guv’nor, ‘He’ll win a National one day’.
“It was hard getting back, because the drugs had damaged about 40 per cent of my lung capacity and it was hard to breathe.
“I went out to the States because the weather was so cold in England and I couldn’t breath at all here.
“I used to go running, ride out about 10 horses, play tennis... God knows what. “I just had to keep at it.” But while Champion was fighting his fight, Aldaniti suffered a serious leg injury at Sandown Park in November 1979. The dream, it seemed, was over.
“The vets wanted to put him down when he broke down so badly at Sandown – they gave him no chance of coming back
– but it was the Embiricos family who insisted, ‘Bob said he’d win a National one day, we’ll give him a chance’.
“I was in hospital at the time and Aldaniti was my inspiration.
“The race itself didn’t really go to plan on the day.
“He overjumped the first and was lucky to get away with it.
“But when he stood off even further at the second and dropped his hind legs in the fence, that made the old horse think. “From that moment, he was a joy to ride.”
The story of the man and horse who beat the odds is Grand National folklore, told in the 1984 film Champions, with John Hurt playing the triumphant jockey.
Champion, awarded the MBE for his unstinting charity work, has himself proved a beacon of hope and inspiration to millions of cancer sufferers.
And he hopes his story will also help those facing uncertain times through the coronavirus pandemic.
That Covid-19 has put paid to major sporting events, including the 2020 Grand National, is a mere irritation beside the turmoil it threatens to wreak on the lives of families the world over.
“We are in very uncertain times, and things are tough for everyone at the moment,” observed Champion.
“But one thing I learned is that the human spirit will fight to the last.
“In hospital, I was close to giving up a couple of times.
“But I went and had a look round the kids’ ward.
“I thought, ‘If they can go through with it, why can’t I?’
“And it worked out in the end.”
In the hospital I learned that the human spirit will fight to the last...