Triumph of a reject Flat horse could herald new Red Rum era
Similarities to the Grand National legend suggest a bright future for this year’s small-scale victor
Could Saturday’s Grand National be the beginning of a new Red Rum era? The comparisons between Tiger Roll and the legend of Aintree are very compelling. To start with, both horses were reject Flat horses. Not a very promising start, one might assume, as far as winning the Grand National is concerned. In spite of Tiger Roll being a son of the 2007 Derby winner Authorised, he never made it to the track for his intended Flat races; and Red Rum only performed at the lowest level, albeit dead-heating in a fivefurlong race at Aintree as a two-year-old and having the pleasure of Lester Piggott on his back a couple of times.
Another similarity is that both horses are small – titchy in comparison to your average staying chaser. The fences that Tiger Roll took on this year are less demanding than those conquered by Red Rum in the 1970s, but all the same, there were serious doubts that the diminutive Tiger Roll would cope with the challenge of Aintree on Saturday.
There are other coincidences; both horses were eight when they won their first National and neither of them, thus far, have ever fallen at an obstacle in a race. Tiger Roll’s mother, Swiss Roll, won middledistance Flat races for trainer Tommy Stack in Ireland. When Stack was a jockey, of course, he was famous for winning the 1977 Grand National on Red Rum.
And while Grand National winning jockey Nigel Hawke [Seagram, 1991] does not have any association with Red Rum, it is interesting that he picked out the unraced three-year-old Tiger Roll at Doncaster Sales in 2013 and bought him for a bargain basement 10,000 guineas. Well, a bargain relative to what he cost to breed and nurture for the first three years of his life.
What Hawke saw in the sales ring at Doncaster was “a real athlete – and I don’t see why he could not be the next Red Rum”.
Saturday’s Grand National was notable for being the sixth consecutive year during which there were no casualties. During that period, budgerigars have been decapitated by ceiling fans or have met their maker by being accidentally flushed down a loo.
I doubt, however, that animal rights groups will be in a hurry to publicise that. After all, nice old ladies who own budgies are prone to giving them lots of money when they fall off their perches.
The Grand National will always be a challenge, but this year, only five horses actually fell, bringing down two others.
It is no coincidence that the race is now much safer for two crucial reasons.
Firstly – as advocated on these pages after the 2012 race – the ‘core’ of the fences has been padded. This stops horses hitting a solid, unforgiving frame on the second circuit when the covering layer of green spruce has been knocked off.
Secondly, the approach to some of the fences has been altered, providing an up slope for the horses to take off from. This changes the angle at which the horses make contact with the fences and reduces the risk of rotational falls, which have been such a problem in three-day eventing competitions.
Any human athlete will tell you that it is much easier to jump an object on a slight incline than it is on the level. So while the change was a compromise, it was probably a sensible one as far as preserving the race was concerned.
The prospect of a woman winning the Grand National was massively over-hyped before this year’s race. But the hyperbole was based on good foundations. Katie Walsh, Bryony Frost and Rachael Blackmore are all good enough jockeys to merit winning a Grand National; and you can add Nina Carberry into that mix as well.
It will all come down to when one of them gets the right opportunity.
That is most likely to come from a big Irish trainer, such as Willie Mullins or Gordon Elliott, or one of the two dominant owners in Irish racing, Michael O’leary or JP Mcmanus, who will continue to have multi-entries in the race.
On Saturday, O’leary and Mcmanus had just shy of 25 per cent of the runners between them. And good luck to them. Just think about how many stable staff, trainers and jockeys can feed their families due to the patronage of these guys.