How many million people were watching it? You’re not going to go round just for a joke!
HIS is one of the iconic Grand National images — a jockey passing the post first in the world’s greatest race.
But you won’t read John White’s name on the honours board at Aintree.
White was the rider of Esha Ness, the horse who ‘won’ the race known, thanks to Sir Peter O’Sullevan’s commentary, as the ‘National that never was’.
Billed as the cinematic showcase of all that is heroic in British horseracing, the 1993 running was – and remains – the sport’s single most humiliating episode.
One trousers-down blunder followed another to drag the world’s most cherished horserace into a tailspin of embarrassment before a jeering crowd and a global television audience of 300 million.
Britain’s betting shops saw the briskest day’s business of the year – only to return all £75million worth of wagers – while reports on the shambles led the TV news and splashed across Sunday’s front pages.
“There was no-one killed, there was no-one hurt,” reflects White, now a trainer in his native Co Wexford.
“But it wasn’t nice on the day or the next day. I was second in it, and fourth – there or thereabouts a few times. You don’t get many shots at the National.”
On April 3 1993, 39 runners circled at the start of the fourand-a-half-mile test, for which the start, due at 3.50pm, was delayed by eight minutes as a group of 15 animal rights protesters were removed from the first fence.
As Jockey Club senior starter Captain Keith Brown, in stone mac and bowler hat, pulled the lever of the antiquated ‘grey gate’ mechanism to raise the tape above the jockeys’ heads and signal the race underway, it caught 66-1 shot New Mill House and 100-1 chance Direct, and broke.
Brown, presiding over his final National before retirement, waved his red flag to denote a false start, and flag man Ken Evans, employed by Aintree racecourse on £28-per day and standing 100 yards up the course, did likewise to bring the horses to a halt.
After a tensionfilled five minutes to repair the tape, the process recommenced. This time it wrapped round the necks of Wont Be Gone Long’s jockey Richard Dunwoody and 200-1 outsider Formula One, but Brown’s ‘flag’ – whose frenzied motion indicated a second false start – resembled a closed red umbrella.
Nine riders obeyed the command not to start, but 30 hurtled past Evans to the first. The “race that surely isn’t” – according to O’Sullevan’s call – was underway. “There’s always noise and chaos – it’s not an ordinary race,” says White, now 58, second on The Tsarevich in 1987 and handed the mount by Esha Ness’s owner Patrick Bancroft on the Jenny Pitman-trained 50-1 shot. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I didn’t think there was anything wrong. “If there was anything wrong, you’d pull up and start again. How many million people are watching it? You don’t want to do something stupid – you’re not going to go round just for a joke.”
Mistaking officials, seeking to stop the race, for more activists – and despite boos ringing round the course – over half the field jumped the Chair on the inside line.
Ten jockeys did pull up, but a dozen runners pressed on in shivering wind and rain onto the final circuit.
After seven had jumped the last of the 30 fences, Esha Ness, relishing the National challenge, swept past the toiling Romany King and The Committee to beat Cahervillahow by a length and a half.
“When I pulled up going by the winning post, Dean Gallagher came down on foot,” recalls White.
“I think he pulled up [on Rowlandsons Jewels] and he said, ‘John, this might not be right.’
“That’s the first I knew of it. My valet, [100-1 winner Foinvavon’s rider] John Buckingham, was insistent that I weigh in. But they wouldn’t weigh me in. No-one knew what was going on.”
Once the stewards’ ruling – that the 1993 Martell Grand National was indeed worth no more than an asterisk and a footnote – arrived, White left Aintree with his late wife Clare.
No post-race party. No garlanded homecoming.
“I just got in the car and Clare drove back to Lambourn,” adds White. “It was a long journey.”
His softly delivered humour – “the cheque is still in the post!” – tells that White hasn’t spent the past quarter century shaking his fist.
There’s no festering bitterness or anger. Just regret at the opportunity lost for Esha Ness – the horse who didn’t win another race – and himself.
“Esha Ness deserved to win. On the day, he was the best,” insists White.
“It’s a long time ago now. It’s history. But the National is the biggest race in the world, the best race in the world, and it’s every jockey’s dream to win
it.”