Youngsters enthralled by legendary jockeys

Ascot – Bob Champion (right) battled back from cancer to win the Grand National while recordbreaking AP McCoy broke nearly all the bones in his body before finally triumphing in the world’s greatest steeplechase at his 15th attempt.

Champion may be 70 now and his magical win on Aldaniti almost 40 years ago but it still strikes a chord with aspiring jockeys who were not born at the time.

Indeed he and McCoy gave four young riders some advice at Ascot racecourse last week as they rode Shetland ponies over mini Grand National fences.

Champion was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1979 and was given six to eight months to live or a 35-40% chance of living if he underwent chemotherapy.

However, even with the treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital near London he became so low he gave up the will to live.

“I just didn’t want to live anymore because it was horrendous those days,” he said.

“I ended up walking through the children’s ward and saw all those children not making a fuss like I was.

“I was supposed to be grown up and they were children, and I thought well ‘If they can go through with it, so can I’.”

Champion says there was no looking back after that.

“So I went back to the ward and got wired up again for more chemotherapy,” said Champion, whose charity has raised £15 million which has funded the construction of two research laboratories one at the Royal Marsden and one in Norwich.

“I’ve got to be really grateful to those kids, because if I hadn’t have gone through that children’s ward I would have given up.”

His remarkable story was turned into a film with the late John Hurt playing the lead role.

McCoy, who says his greatest achievement was breaking Gordon Richards’ total of winners in a season in 2002 and winning the 2010 Grand National on Don’t Push It, has since retired and become president of the Injured Jockeys Fund (IJF).

McCoy and the mini-jockeys will compete at Olympia Horse Show “Race Night” on December 21, featuring the Markel Champions Challenge in aid of the IJF and the Shetland Pony Grand National in aid of The Bob Champion Cancer Trust. –