National challenge endures through the years
Tom Scudamore’s grandfather Michael won the Grand National 58 years ago. Now the jockey hopes to make family history of his own when he partners favourite Vieux Lion Rouge in Saturday’s showpiece.
THE Aintree that Tom Scudamore will face on Randox Health Grand National favourite Vieux Lion Rouge is very different from the challenge conquered by his late grandfather Michael in 1959 when Oxo prevailed.
Then the fences were bigger, and the drops more pronounced on the landing side of iconic obstacles like Becher’s Brook with black and white photos showing riders leaning back in the saddle.
The gruelling race was also nearly a quarter of a mile longer when the race started directly in front of the packed stands.
Yet, 58 years later, the challenge remains a formidable one – the toughest in steeplechasing – in spite of recent safety modifications.
Four and a quarter miles, 40 horses, 30 fences and the need for patience on the part of jockeys when the cavalry charge begins at 5.15pm on Saturday.
Scudamore, whose revered grandfather passed away in 2014, has been attending the Aintree showpiece every year since 1988. Then his father Peter came to grief at Becher’s on the second circuit when leading a race ultimately won by the David Elsworth-trained Rhyme ‘N’ Reason, whose jockey Brendan Powell had made a wondrous recovery at the same fence first time round. The sense of disappointment endures.
“It’s the old adage – get round to the water jump and see where you are as you go out into the country for a second time,” he told The Yorkshire Post. “Grandad didn’t care how he got there. He just wanted to still have a chance with a circuit to go. Dad was the same. The course has changed, but the test is still the same.”
There is added family intrigue in this year’s renewal with Vieux Lion Rouge’s chief rivals including the great Scottish hope One For Arthur who is trained by Scudamore’s aforementioned father and his partner Lucinda Russell.
The rivalry will be a friendly one – but there is no denying that Vieux Lion Rouge, Scudamore junior’s 16th ride in the £1m race, represents the best chance of victory in a burgeoning career taken to new heights by his relationship with the trailblazing Thistlecrack, who is currently sidelined by injury.
Scudamore says it is about time that his family triumphed – his father was third aboard Jenny Pitman’s Corbiere in 1985 while his younger brother Michael trained Monbeg Dude, co-owned by Mike Tindall and other rugby luminaries, to third in 2015.
Seventh last year when ridden by Saltburn’s James Reveley, the David Pipe-trained Vieux Lion Rouge – French for ‘Old Red Lion’ – won the Becher Chase last December over Aintree’s National fences, overhauling big race rival Highland Lodge in a thrilling finish, before winning Haydock’s attritional Grand National Trial in February.
Scudamore, in winning action at Carlisle yesterday aboard Mr Big Shot, said: “He ran well in the race last year and obviously he has won a Becher and the Grand National trial at Haydock.
“He seems to have matured an awful lot this year and I certainly wouldn’t be swapping him for anything at this stage.
“The initial thought last year was that he just ran out of stamina, but he is a very different horse now,” he said.
“As soon as he won the Becher Chase, to me the National was the obvious race for him.
“He looked beaten jumping the last in the Becher, but from the Elbow on the run-in he just ground it out. The further he has gone, the better he has gone.
“At Haydock turning into the straight you would say he had a bit to find with Gas Line Boy and Blaklion, but by the time he got to the winning line he was well on top. You would like to think the way he finishes his races, that four and a bit at Aintree will be within his radar.”
Scudamore – one of a select number of jockeys to have ridden more than 1,000 winners – points to maturity as part of the improvement in the form of Vieux Lion Rouge.
He also feels the unique Aintree fences have contributed to his upturn.
The 34-year-old said: “He has got all the right attributes and in his younger days he had a bit of speed about him.
“He was good enough to be third to Garde La Victoire over two and a half miles at Cheltenham and he wasn’t slow at all.
“I certainly thought that he is a better horse over the National fences going into the Haydock race the last day, but the way he jumped round there he didn’t put a foot wrong.
“For whatever reason, though, Aintree has just made a man of him. He enjoys the place, it’s really turned him around and we go there full of confidence.”
Although injury to Thistlecrack robbed Scudamore of the chance of Gold Cup glory, victory in the National, having grown up in a household steeped in the sport, would be significant in its own right.
He said: “It is a completely separate thing. It will never make up for missing the chance to ride Thistlecrack in this year’s Gold Cup, but it would mean an awful lot in so many ways.
“Obviously Grandad was lucky enough to win it, Dad never won it, but there are lots of good jockeys that have never won it and there are less successful riders that have won it.
“At the end of the day, to have ‘Grand National win’ on the CV would be wonderful.
“It’s the only day when racing knocks everything off the front and back pages. It becomes the main event of the day and has that magic that no other racing event has.
“There are not many things on a Saturday that would take the Premier League football or rugby match off the back pages of the national papers. It is the main jewel in our crown that gains a worldwide audience and that makes it very special.
“You are probably a little more on edge come National morning, although it gets easier as the day goes on. As boring as it sounds, you are just trying to turn it into another day at the office and concentrating on what to do.
“I’ve had some nice rides in it before. Soll a couple of years ago was one of the favourites, none of them have won, but hopefully Vieux Lion Rouge will change that.
“It’s still a great test – you only have to look at the odds of the most recent winners. It still takes some winning – it’s about time a short-priced horse wins it.”
From his standpoint, as long as it is Vieux Lion Rouge.