LIVING THE DREAM
Heroic Bob Champion and Aldaniti defied adversity to win world’s greatest race
THERE have been countless National victories involving heroic bravery from both horse and rider.
But Champion literally climbed off his death bed to capture the world’s most demanding race and Aldaniti escaped the bullet.
Champion, now a fit and well 71-year-old, admits when diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1979 he felt like jumping out his hotel bedroom.
He was given eight months to live – or a 35-40% chance of survival with treatment.
As a seven-year-old at Redcar races, Champion predicted his future when asked by the late ITV racing
SINCE the first running of the Grand National in 1839 there has never been a triumph over adversity that will ever match the victory of Bob Champion and Aldaniti in 1981
pundit John Rickman what he wanted to do. He replied: “To win the Grand National.”
The thoughts of winning the race rested with Aldaniti but like Champion he was fighting his Champion own battle had for suggested survival. to horse’s trainer Josh Gifford and owner Nick Embiricos he could be the type to win a National.
While he was recovering from cancer, Aldaniti damaged a leg so badly in a race at Sandown vets suggested it would be best to put him down.
After six months confined to his stable with his leg in plaster Aldaniti regained fitness. But in the National itself, the dream came perilously close to be over when Aldaniti made a monumental blunder at the first fence. After the chestnut regained his feet, Champion ignored riding instructions – to wait and take it up after the last fence – when he grasped the race by the scruff of the neck when leading the charge on the final circuit. Approaching the last fence 54-year-old John Thorne and Spartan Missile put in a spirited late challenge. Had the pair succeeded Thorne would have become the oldest rider to win the race on a horse he bred, owned and trained.
Aldaniti’s success inspired a cancer charity from donations sent by the public who had backed the horse to win the race.
Champion’s victory was not just about winning an iconic horse race, it gave hope and inspiration to thousands unfortunate to have encountered cancer.