AP, JP and Jonjo – as if the Grand National didn’t have enough drama

Saturday’s Grand National was what sport is all about. I don’t know about all of you but as AP McCoy drove Don’t Push It up Aintree’s famous run-in to secure a vintage victory for owner JP McManus and trainer Jonjo O’Neill, my eyes were welling up, my heart was pounding and my smile was as broad as Becher’s Brook.

It was a victory that everyone could relate to and be delighted with, even if you hadn’t backed the victor. A winner at the 15^th attempt for the greatest jump jockey of them all, at the 22^nd time of asking as a jockey and a trainer for Jonjo, probably the nicest man in racing, and at the 44^th try for JP, the most generous benefactor the sport of kings has ever had. This was box office entertainment. 

Every sporting figure, fixture or event can provoke some kind of response from fans and spectators. Whether it is anger at Tiger Woods’ stray moral compass, relief at Newcastle’s return to top flight football at the first time of asking or jealousy at Phil Mickelson’s short game and wife; sport, like politics, manages to bring people’s feelings to the surface.

However, rarely does a sporting event provoke such a wave of sentiment as the 2010 Grand National. This was primarily because of the people involved.

Sport, like most good things in life, is about the people. Larger than life characters can bring events to life and this is exactly what happened in Liverpool on Saturday afternoon.

England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup win and the 2005 Ashes summer provoked scenes of unbridled joy. This was demonstrated when thousands of people lined the streets of central London to congratulate their conquering heroes.

The reason these events will live long in the memory is not only because of the unbelievable drama that surrounded them but also because of the characters at the centre of the plot. Jonny, Johnno, Freddie, KP. These are the type of guys who take sport to a higher plain and make specific events stand out from the crowd. Saturday’s race was one of these. If racing had the fan-base that those sports had then this race would have been inked in as a classic sporting moment of the past decade.    

I have been at Aintree for five of the past seven Grand Nationals and I can safely say that none of the others even came close to this one in terms of emotion when the winner thundered past the post and was welcomed into the winners’ enclosure. This includes Amberleigh House’s 2004 win which provided Ginger McCain with his historic fourth win in the race after Red Rum’s three triumphs, the last of which was in 1977.

The response was magnificent and this was not just because Don’t Push It had been backed down from 20-1 to 10-1 joint-favourite in the 30 minutes before the race. It was because everyone who knows anything about jump racing knows that the three men primarily responsible for the result are among, if not the, finest and most popular figures around. It was an electric atmosphere in the stands. 

I have been working at the past four Grand National meetings, ferrying around the owners, trainers and jockeys. The days are fairly long, beginning at about 8:30am and finishing at 8pm and so I have clocked a great number of hours and miles in my buggy.

I have had the pleasure of driving around some of the great figures of the sport such as Ruby Walsh and the great figures of other sports such as Sir Alex Ferguson but nothing in all that time has come anywhere near to the hour I was privileged to spend with Jonjo and his family after the big win on Saturday.

The joy in their eyes was clear to see and the way that they spoke about the win made me realise that this is what sport is all about.

It is the way that it can make even the most unemotional of men such as JP McManus shed tears of joy after achieving a lifelong ambition. It is the way that it can reward people for the ridiculous amount of hard work they put in such as AP McCoy. And it is the way that it has a funny habit of rewarding the good guys such as Jonjo O’Neill that makes sport so special.

Saturday’s race was just one example of sport at it’s magical best. If everyone stays fit and we manage to overcome our natural flair for departing the major tournaments on penalties at the quarter-final stage, then we could have another in South Africa come July 11^th courtesy of our footballers. (Fingers crossed).  

These moments should be cherished because they do not come about often.

California Dreamin’

“And it’s four of them coming to the line abreast,” screamed the Californian commentator with his West Coast twang. “Novato on the inside, Where’s Scarlet, Paloma’s Flight and Garrett Gomez is right there on Warren’s Appeal. There is nothing between them and it’s….”

Then everything went blank for my four companions and me.

We had arrived in America a fortnight previously. We had already seen so much. Alcatraz, the glorious Route One coastline highway, waves in Big Sur and wine in Santa Barbara. We had taken in a ball game in Oakland and the stars of Hollywood. All the while we had been making the most of our posh English accents and welcoming any chance to speak loudly within earshot of any of the beauties of the Sunshine State.

Besides this we still had the thrills and spills of Vegas, the natural wonder that is the Grand Canyon, the sights and sounds of Chicago, the monuments of Washington DC and the endless streets of New York to look forward to. We were quite simply having the times of our lives. 

However, we had not yet attempted what so few British travellers to the land of opportunity had done – conquer an American racecourse.

We had missed the chance to visit the Mecca of West Coast racing, the incomparable Santa Anita, but a track just north of San Diego was hosting a meet the day after tomorrow. I desperately wanted to go despite it being at a track I had never heard of with horses I would never come across again and with the variation in running of a virtual dogs fixture in Will Hill.

I have never been a great fan of American racing. An exception is the Breeders’ Cup which had always thrilled me ever since I watched the 2003 Classic with my grandfather and had to sit through a photo-finish where my pick, Falbrav, was pipped on the line by High Chaparral and Johar who had a dead-heat. That still hurt and I felt this was my chance to get my own back and on American soil too.

We arrived at the course and I for one was pleasantly surprised to see that this was no Mickey Mouse track, this was no random meet at Hereford. This was a serious course for serious people. The money on offer was pretty impressive.

We grabbed hold of a card each and set about studying the form. To our disgust the format was not the same as back home and not in a good way either. We would have to rely on our eyes and pick them out in the paddock.

We entered the parade ring and immediately all picked different horses. Not a good start. We decided to go our separate ways and were flabbergasted that none of us won, despite almost covering the runners. And so it was with the second race too. Unbelievable.

We took time out of the betting ring to go think about our strategy in the bar. What were we doing wrong? We had no idea. This run of bad luck / incompetence continued for the next couple of races too. We ended up concluding that we couldn’t pick a tooth let alone a horse in the paddock and that we should probably just enjoy the racing with a few of their annoyingly watered down lagers. Agreed.

Yet, there was a nagging feeling in my mind that this was not the end, the dream was not over. I could see Falbrav getting caught on the line over and over again and decided that I was not going to let that happen again, not on my watch.

I made a suggestion. Lads, why don’t we pool a bit of cash by sitting out the next two races and then attack the last race like JP McManus at Cheltenham on St Paddy’s Day. Again, we agreed.

So we poured over the form for the last race. We agreed to put in $20 each taking our total to a round tonne to probably throw away on some three-legged rocking horse that we were sure to pick judging by our earlier efforts.

We managed to whittle down the card to two contenders and took to the paddock to see how our girls looked. They both looked much of a muchness to the untrained eye, which we certainly were. We were struggling to agree but then our decision was effectively made for us.

One of them lightened their load right in front of us, which my friend exuberantly exclaimed was the key to gambling on dogs so how different could horses be? I chose not to comment but to blindly trust his questionable logic.

Our minds had been made up and we put our money on the line. Success was out of our hands. It was up to our filly now and her Mexican jockey.

The race was very similar to the previous seven, run at a good gallop with the runners tightly bunched on the inside rail. The course commentator seemed to mention every nag apart from ours and we were starting to get worried.

We all turned to each other as they came up the home straight with a forlorn look on our faces, safe in the knowledge that we had again backed the only candidate who couldn’t win a raffle, let alone a competitive handicap.

But then something happened and we all began screaming.

“And Novato has seen a gap on the inside and is absolutely flying….”

Suddenly our forlorn looks had turned to disbelief and then hope. Could she do it? She had come from way back but there were still three others in contention including the hot favourite. But the Mexican wasn’t taking no for an answer and his mount was showing the tenacity of a champion boxer.

In the final few strides she was right there on the inside rail with three others for company.

“And it’s four of them coming to the line abreast. Novato on the inside, Where’s Scarlet, Paloma’s Flight and Garrett Gomez is right there on Warren’s Appeal. There is nothing between them and it’s….”

The steward’s enquiry took an absolute age. It must have been the closest run thing since George W Bush’s 2000 election win but finally the result came through.

“And the winner is…. number one, NOVATO!”

Our cries of jubilation could probably have been heard in Texas. We had won. We had come to an American racecourse and emerged with more money than you could hope to spend. It was a wonderful feeling.

Well, when I say we emerged with more money than we could hope to spend I wasn’t being completely honest. Novato had won us a little over $800 but we celebrated in San Diego like we had won the EuroMillions.  

It was a great night but nothing could beat that feeling of extraordinary joy when our girl had gone into a four-horse photo and emerged victorious by a bee’s whisker.

California had been good to us. We were the luckiest guys on Earth. Well, the luckiest guys at Del Mar anyway.