Why it’s always lucky number seven at Aintree

The National has a habit of delivering its most dramatic moments for years ending in seven, as Tom Peacock explains

1967 Foinavon’s 100-1 sensation

Neither trainer John Kempton nor owner Cyril Watkins were at Aintree to see Foinavon cause one of sport’s biggest shocks.

It was not because they had given up on the rank outsider; Watkins could not go racing on Saturdays because of a job working on the football pools and Kempton was riding another of his horses to win at Worcester, where he watched the National on a television in the weighing room. “I was jumping up and down so much I broke the table,” Glory day: Foinavon and John Buckingham clear the last in 1967 he recalled. A loose horse, Popham Down, was the villain of the piece as he led the field over Becher’s Brook for a second time. At the next fence, No 23 and one of the least intimidating in the race, he decided to veer across Johnny Leech and Rutherfords, causing such confusion that the first 20 horses were obstructed or stopped in their tracks.

Lobbing along at his own pace was Foinavon, who was directed to the far right of the fence, scrambled over and was so far clear of his hastily remounted rivals that he was never caught.

“John Buckingham [Foinavon’s jockey] said he was going to follow [favourite and eventual second] Honey End like glue and was only two lengths behind him all the way to the pile up,” said Kempton. “People always thought Honey End would come through and win the race, they never reckoned Foinavon would. I’ve got to give John Buckingham the biggest credit, he clicked the situation straight away and was very cool. A lot of horses wouldn’t have gone on their own jumping.”

Foinavon, who once belonged to Arkle’s owner Anne, Duchess of Westminster, had fallen five times in succession before being bought on behalf of Watkins for £2,000. Kempton pieced the horse together, competing 10 times without falling, including in the Gold Cup, but could not do the National weight.

Kempton, who could not afford to finish a course at veterinary college, had spotted a 15-box yard to rent in Compton in the 1950s and was a farrier as well as a jockey and trainer. He retired two years later and finished up with a business taking scuba divers around the coast. “My love for racing was really the riding,” he said. “Training didn’t have the same draw.” He will, however, be back for the 50th anniversary this weekend.