Unsung hero proved pivotal in Pitman’s plans for Corbiere’s triumph
Jenny Pitman and Corbiere made Grand National history on April 9, 1983, thanks to an unlikely ally who answered their call for help. Tom Richmond reports.
THE 1983 Grand National will always be remembered for Corbiere’s triumph as Jenny Pitman became the first female trainer to land the world’s greatest steeplechase.
In a pulsating finish, Corbiere – owned by Bryan Burrough and ridden by Ben de Haan – repelled the late challenge of Greasepaint to join the list of illustrious names on Aintree’s honours board.
Yet one person remains absent from this roll-call of sporting heroes. The late Bert House, the founder of Brean Leisure Park on the dunes of Burnham-on-Sea in North Somerset.
It was House, who died in 2012 at the age of 95, that Pitman consulted about tide times when a ferociously cold winter left her gallops frozen and the National preparations of Corbiere on proverbial thin ice.
“I was scratching my head thinking what the hell am I going to do?” Pitman told The Yorkshire Post in an exclusive interview to mark the 37th anniversary of her landmark win.
“I thought why not take the horses to the beach? If it was good enough for Red Rum and Ginger McCain, it would be good enough for my horses. Someone told me to ring this Bert House because he knew all the tide times.”
Time – as opposed to the tide – was already running against Pitman. Even though Corbiere had won the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow, he was missing crucial work in the build-up to what was, possibly, the final National because Aintree’s very future was again in doubt.
From Lambourn, she would load the runners into their boxes together with work riders, tacks, saddles, hot water to wash down the horses afterwards – and countless flasks of tea to sustain her team.
It could be so bitter, recalled Pitman, that even the seagulls appeared to be frozen on the water’s edge as she told her jockeys to canter along the water’s edge where there was just sufficient give in the sand as the tide ebbed away.
“You work on gut instinct when your back is against the wall, and which it was,” she explained before explaining how she drove alongside her string of horses in a battered Datsun Cherry at precisely 18mph to ensure the horses were not overexerted.
Yet, while these away days to Burnham were hard work because of the logistics and cold weather, there were mishaps – like the time she drove her car into the mudflats because she was focusing on the horses rather than the terrain ahead.
“It was sinking faster than it took to drink a mug of tea,” said Pitman. “I got out and held a load of the horses while the lads pushed it out.”
And then the reaction of her horses as they were unsaddled and washed down; Corbiere – known as ‘Corky’ – digging huge holes in the sand as he enjoyed his new-found freedom.
On one occasion, a gang of council workmen digging up sand to spread local football pitches became so enamoured by the horse that Pitman led
Corbiere over to them and explained that he was going to run in the Grand National.
Their surprise certainly left an impression.
“Thinking on the way home of all the people who would not have been pleased that I had won the National – I was self-satisfied – I thought of the lads on the beach and hoped that they had had a bet,” said Pitman, who said the horse’s subsequent triumph was “better than winning the Lottery”. “You can only say that the horses were all the better for galloping on the beach from the point of view that Corbiere won the National.
“That’s the sort of thing I’ve done all my life. I left it to my gut instinct and the fact that my dad was a stockman, and dealt with animals of all types, you were brought up in the right environment without fancy machines. When you have your back to the wall, something inside your gut tells you this is what you’re going to do.”
And so it proved.