The day a prime Suspect made Davies a hero
HE was a horse whose owner and trainer didn’t want to run in the Grand National. He was a jockey who was brought back from the dead and whose heart wasn’t really set on Aintree glory.
If they weren’t quite the last combination expected to win the world’s greatest steeplechase on March 30 1985, they certainly weren’t the usual suspects.
But when Hywel Davies partnered the Tim Forster-trained 50-1 outsider Last Suspect to victory in the Aintree marathon 35 years ago this week, they were the right combination at the right time. Davies was one of the leading riders in the 1980s, battling for the jump jockey’s title with the likes of all-time greats Peter Scudamore and John Francome.
He rode for several trainers like Josh Gifford and a young Nicky Henderson. But for eight years he was the retained rider at Forster’s Letcombe Bassett stables. Having won the National twice prior to 1985, Forster was one of the leading trainers of his generation and provided Davies with a steady stream of winners.
Cardigan-born Davies’s ambition was to be champion jockey. The nearest he got was when he was third in 1984.
Not having a title is his biggest regret, but that National win is special.
Speaking back in 2015, he said: “Each year it becomes more special and has pride of place in my heart. But at the time I was riding my goal was always to be champion jockey.
“I was in the top five jockeys for most of my career. I was quite lucky to be successful. I had quite a short career – I only rode for about 16 years.
“The lads now ride for 21, 22, 23 years. I didn’t start until I was 20-21 and I was retired at 37. The closest I got to the title was third.
“My boss, Captain Forster, won three Grand Nationals so he was a very good trainer, a top-flight trainer. But he was quite a pessimist really.
“The horses we had he downgraded them. He would rather run them at a grade two track rather than a grade one track. If there was a chance of running a horse at Towcester or running at Newbury on a Friday, he would go to Towcester.
“Back in 1983-84 I was also riding a lot for Nicky Henderson. He was an upand-coming trainer at the time. He wasn’t the force he is now. But he was certainly a trainer who was going to hit the big time.
“Nicky offered me the job in 1983 and at the time I felt how could you walk away from a big trainer like Tim Forster. He trained for the richest owners in the country at the time.
“So I stuck with him.”
He added: “The Grand National wasn’t necessarily high up on my list.
“Yes, I wanted to win it. Yes, I wanted to ride in it every year that it came around. But I don’t think I rode the 10-1, 12-1, 14-1 shots – what I would call the livewires – so I didn’t necessarily have big chances.”
Not riding one of the more fancied runners didn’t matter in 1985. Last Suspect went off a relatively unbacked 50-1 due to his quirky tendency to down tools on occasion.
Last Suspect, though, had been a classy horse in Ireland before he was moved to Forster’s stables by owner Anne, the Duchess of Westminster, and Davies had faith in his ability.
But he had to convince his owner to let him line up for his shot at National glory. That would not be an easy task. The Duchess had owned the legendary Arkle in the 1960s and had no interest in risking arguably jump racing’s greatest horse over the formidable Liverpool fences.
And indications suggested she was equally reluctant to let Last Suspect line up at Aintree.
Davies recalled: “The Duchess had horses with Jim Dreaper in Ireland and Last Suspect was one of them. He won the Leopardstown Chase, which is their Gold Cup, so he was a top-class horse.
“But he came over to us because there were no races available to him in Ireland because he was handicapped out of it. He’d had too many tough races carrying 13st in most of them. They decided that they would bring the horse over to this country because there would be more opportunities.
“But he was badly handicapped and we were going to struggle to win races with him. We weren’t cheating, but we ran him to his ability and made sure that we didn’t knock him around because he was carrying so much weight.
“Gradually he would come down the handicap. Every time he did, handicapped to a winning mark, then I would win on him.
“I won every year on him for three years before the National, beating decent staying chasers.
“He’d had such a tough career in Ireland that it had soured him a bit. There was no wonder he turned monkey. But we sweetened him up. I won on him at Chepstow, Warwick, Sandown, Newbury – staying tracks.
“But by the time the National came around, the Captain was thinking of retiring him. But I thought the National would be the type of race that might get his blood up.
“He was running in and out and the handicapper was seeing this and dropping him all the time. He got in the National with a handicap mark of 10st 2lb, so he was thrown in.
“With his ability it was like having nothing on his back, like riding bareback. The Captain ran him in a National prep (at Warwick) and he pulled himself up, which was just before the last declarations. And the Duchess and the captain decided between them that he probably wouldn’t run.
“And when I found out about the decision not to run I ran in to see the Captain and said ‘listen, you’ve got to run him because if you don’t there is nothing else for him. You might as well retire the old sod.’ And he said ‘if you want to sort that out you’ll have to speak to the Duchess because we have decided there is no point in running him.’” So the story goes, the Duchess was under the dryer at her hairdresser
when the phone rang and Davies delivered the argument that the fourand-a-half-mile course and 30 fences would suit a horse whose jumping and stamina were unquestioned.
He added: “I ran and got the secretary to ring her up and spoke to her and she said ‘it’s your neck so if you want to break it, carry on.’ So I said ‘does that mean we can run him?’ And she said ‘yes.’ So we ran.”
Davies, himself, was also lucky to get the chance of National glory.
Just over 12 months before Last Suspect’s win, he was involved in a bad fall. He came down at the last fence on the David Barons-trained Solid Rock and he was knocked unconscious. His heart actually stopped beating on the way to hospital and after several attempts to resuscitate him, the Welsh rider was eventually revived.
Almost matter-of-factly, he recalled: “I broke my collarbone six times, my pelvis, my arm and ribs but never my legs. Every jockey falls. If a jockey thinks he is not going to fall he’s kidding himself. You fall every seven rides. But you can’t really think about it.
“I only had one really bad injury. I had a bad fall at Doncaster on a horse called Solid Rock which knocked me out. I got a deep concussion. On the way to the hospital I died for a bit. They had to revive me seven times.”
But the incident meant that when he lined up at Aintree on Last Suspect he knew he had to take his chance of glory, despite connections’ reservations.
He said: “Before the race the only orders I got from the Captain was ‘keep remounting’ as he handed me the saddle. It was a typical statement because he was quite a pessimist.
“So I was thinking they haven’t got much confidence for this.”
But Davies did have confidence and he devised a plan to get the best out of the then 11-year-old. It worked perfectly as they collared Mr Snugfit and landed the Aintree marathon by a length and a half.
He said: “As soon as I got on him, he was sweating down the neck and you could tell he was up for it.
“But I just decided I would take him
around the outside on the first circuit so he wouldn’t get knocked around so he would have a clear passage, nothing to upset him. And it worked a treat. He really enjoyed it, it got his blood up.
“It was only from Valentine’s second time he realised he was in a proper race. He swished his tail and I could feel underneath me him not really wanting to go.
“But I managed to keep him going until about the second last and tried to push and push, give a couple of slaps to encourage him to go forward.”
Coming over the second-last fence Last Suspect’s chances looked slim as Mr Snugfit, ridden by Phil Tuck for Mick Easterby, went to the front and jumping the last looked to have the race at his mercy.
But his stamina began to ebb away on the long run-in and Davies was galvanising his mount for one last effort.
“After the last, Mr Snugfit was only four or five lengths in front of me,” said the 63-year-old. So I really went for it on the run-in and when I got to the Elbow the horse just dropped his head and flew. So I said ‘go.’
“He went flying by him, but as soon as he got past the winning post he pulled up so quickly that I thought I was going to fall off him.”
Davies added: “He was a very clever horse. He was a wise horse. We ran him again the following year and I mistakenly tried to do the same thing and ride him the same way and he didn’t want it. He said ‘no way, pal.’”
The first time, though, proved Davies right.
He said: “I don’t think any other race would have done it for him. Sure enough, he put his best foot forward that one day.”
Forster said afterwards: “It was a brilliant piece of riding by a person who knew his horse.”
There were wild celebrations in Cardigan where two pubs ran dry.
A few weeks later Cardigan came to a standstill, with schools closing for the day and thousands lining the streets as Davies was given a civic reception.
“At the time it meant as much to me as winning the National,” he said.
After a glittering 17-year career and 761 winners, he retired in 1994. His son James is now a successful jockey.