Related Articles
Film scriptwriters couldn’t even dream up the tale of the 1981 Grand National.
So they didn’t bother – they just took the story and made it into a film.
While Elizabeth Taylor’s National Velvet used the world’s greatest steeplechase in the plot of the 1945 movie, the story of Bob Champion and Aldaniti’s triumph on April 4 1981 made the opposite move crossing from the turf to the big screen.
The John Irvin-directed 1984 release starring John Hurt in the lead role – and Aldaniti as Himself! – was based on the book the jockey co-wrote with journalist Jonathan Powell.
The reason it made it to the movies is the tale behind the victory was one of the most remarkable, even in the storied history of the Aintree showpiece.
Both jockey and horse were lucky to be alive, nevermind back on the track after medical issues.
Don’t miss your ECHO 2021 Grand National Special in shops and online now
The then top National Hunt rider had been diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1979 and had to have an operation to remove the diseased testicle before lengthy chemotherapy.
Champion’s partner, the Josh Gifford-trained Aldaniti, had suffered from chronic leg problems – which would have ended many a horse’s career – dating back to 1976 including two bouts of tendon trouble and a fractured hockbone.
That they were both back competing at Aintree Racecourse in 1981 was something of a miracle.
But Champion – who, for the last 40 years has raised millions through his cancer charity, the Bob Champion Trust, for which he received an CBE in the New Year’s Honours List following on from his MBE given by the Queen in 1982 – never gave up hope of returning to the saddle.
And his partner, Aldaniti, helped him recover.
A high-class staying chaser, Aldaniti had finished third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and second in the Scottish Grand National in 1979. But a leg injury, picked up at Sandown at the end of that year saw him forced on the sidelines for more than a year.
The then 11-year-old returned with victory at Ascot in the February before the Grand National. While the jockey was also back in the saddle after his own absence.
On April 4 1981 Aldaniti and Champion started the National as the 10-1 second favourite behind 8-1 shot Spartan Missile – who had previously won the Foxhunters’ Chase, run over the big Aintree fences twice.
Despite a mistake at the first fence everything went to plan, 10 years on from Champion’s Grand National debut on Country Wedding – when he fell at the first.
Champion, who will be 73 in June this year, recalled the joy of riding at Aintree.
He said: “I can remember you are always up there three days, it is a three-day (jumps) meeting now.
“When I first started riding my first times up at Liverpool used to be a mixed meeting. There were only a few races (over the jumps) the rest were Flat racing. I can always remember being in the same weighing room – well there were two right next to each other – and the Flat jockeys were in one and jump jockeys in the other and you had the likes of Lester Piggott up there. That was a tremendous part of it. Geniuses in there.”
Grand National 2021: Favourite Cloth Cap on course as 77 entries remain for Aintree showpiece
Looking back on his big day, he added: “Then in my National it was a beautiful sunny day – I can remember that.
“You do all the formalities, the press, TV all those interviews and basically you get on with the job.
“It didn’t all go to plan really. He overjumped the first and he stood ever further back at the second and I thought, ‘oh my God, if he does exactly the same again at the third I will doing seven somersaults’.
“But the old horse had a brain and from that moment he jumped really well.
“My orders were to hold him up to the last fence. And I can remember I jumped Becher’s and I must have had the best run around the Canal Turn in the history of the race. We started off on the outside but I got my angles right and the fence later, which is Valentine’s I jumped to the front.
“All I can remember is thinking the rollicking I will be getting in the stands from the ‘guv’nor’. I better start thinking of excuses.
“I didn’t pull back but he was a free horse and was jumping for fun.
“At the next fences all I kept thinking was going through Red Rum’s five Nationals, thinking about Lucius’ National and Rubstic’s National. But the horse was jumping fantastic. He was attacking the fences. You could ride (him) into a fence. He was absolutely brilliant to ride.
“I was going to the last in front and I thought. I am in the right place at the right time now.
“I jumped the last and I always felt there were two horses coming after me. I didn’t know what they were at the time. I thought one was Royal Mail, because I had seen him for the majority of the race. I thought it was him. But at the second last he was getting a bit tired and made a mistake. But I was always convinced I would hold him off.
“The horse I was tracking early on, Spartan Missile, must have made a mistake at Becher’s first time because I lost him through the race. I thought he had fallen or something.
“Basically I got to the Elbow and I thought if I get to the running rail of the Elbow first it will take a running machine to get past me. I wasn’t going any quicker but I had gone the right pace and I knew I would keep going at the pace and something with a turn of foot would have to beat me. And I promise you, you don’t get a horse with a turn of foot at the end of the National after four and a half miles.
“At the Elbow I felt a horse come to my quarters but didn’t look. You sense a horse is there. But I went and won two or three lengths.
“If the race was another 200 or 300 yards I would have won 10 lengths. I just kept galloping.”
The late BBC commentator Peter O’Sullevan, as ever, described the conclusion of Aldaniti and Champion’s victory in perfect style.
He said: “It’s Aldaniti in the lead but being pressed now by Spartan Missile. It’s Aldaniti from Spartan Missile and here comes John Thorne, 54 year old John Thorne putting in a storming finish. It’s Aldaniti from Spartan Missile. Aldaniti is gonna win it, at the line, Aldaniti wins the National!”
And on that moment when he finally achieved the victory, his thoughts turned to those who had helped him achieve National success.
Champion said: “I pulled up and my first thought that went through my mind was I was going to dedicate this race to all the nurses and doctors that looked after me in hospital. Firstly the two nurses who looked after me, Jenny and Carol. They came up and Liverpool were great, they gave them tickets and lunch. And having them there, who had seen me through all the bad days. We seemed to have the same nurses and people looking after all the time. That meant a lot to me to have them there.
“The next thought was this would be a fantastic way to retire for about three seconds. And then I thought, ‘I want to do next year’.
“But next season, I carried on, and fell at the first.
“But there was another person there, Mr McKenzie – who was my form master at school. He was there. When I was about 14 the careers’ officer came round. The careers’ officers offered me two jobs – Skinninggrove mines which went under the North Sea about 15 miles, looking after the pit ponies. That was always caving in, killing a few people. Or Dorman Long steelworks and I didn’t want to be working in that furnace. It was a bit hot and a few people used to get killed there too.
“And Mr McKenzie said, ‘I wouldn’t listen to me, your dream has always been to be a jockey one day. So follow your dream’. I will always remember that and when I came in the unsaddling enclosure. He was stood by with his thumb up. That meant so much to me.”
It was the thought of riding Aldaniti and some other star names that kept Champion going during his darkest days.
He added: “Him (Aldaniti), Kybo (who Champion won the 1978 Christmas Hurdle one) and a few other horses kept me going. The chemo was so barbaric those days. You were very ill on it. It was hard and got in your brain because of the treatment, not the disease funnily enough.
“But I was thinking I have got to have a go. And then the old horse broke down two-thirds, three-quarters through the treatment.
“I felt like giving up those days. But I thought I have come this far. I hope there are one of two horses for me to come back to. Thankfully Aldaniti came back too.
“The owners, Embircos’, the vets told them to put him down. They didn’t think he would have any chance of getting back. But because I had said he would win a Grand National one day. they gave him a chance.
“The horse must have been the best patient in the world because he was tied up for six months in plaster. He couldn’t lay down. He just stood there at the end of a rope just eating his food for six months. His constitution was great. A lot of horses would have gone crazy – I know I would have done. He was such a wonderful patient. Beryl, who looked after him – they all did a fantastic job.
“And he came back on January 1 1981 to Josh Gifford’s. They had done all the roadwork and him being a very, strong free horse Josh decided to ride him out himself.
“And Josh has been champion jockey, a great trainer and had hands like silk. If he hadn’t ridden him out every day there is no way he would have gotten to the National, I assure you.
“He got him relaxed and did a fantastic job. My part was to sit on him on a raceday. That was about it.
“I only sat on him that year, the day before he went to Ascot for his comeback race. I popped him over two or three fences. Rode him at Ascot the next day when he won.
“I sat on him once for the TV before he went to Liverpool and one morning in Liverpool, then the Grand Naitonal.”
After Aldaniti died in March 1997, trainer Gifford said: “It wasn’t just what he did in his racing career, but what he has done since as well. He helped raise more than £3m for charity, and he and Bob gave hope to a lot of people.
“He had a heart bigger than himself. He always wanted to go faster than he could and he tried his heart out.
“He wasn’t the easiest horse to train and missed two seasons because of injury. But when he was sick he was a wonderful patient and when he had to spend six months in his box he just took it in his stride.
“He certainly gave me the fondest day of my racing career and was in fact a better horse when he returned to Aintree for the 1982 Grand National, but fell at the first fence.”
More than 3,000 people turned out to welcome the ‘Champions’ home at Gifford’s stables in Findon.
And from then Champion and Aldaniti were household names.
As well as his book and the film, Champion was surprised by presenter Eamonn Andrews for the television show, This Is Your Life, on his wedding day later that year.
He set up his charity two years later, which has gone on to help millions of people suffering with cancer, and he has received many awards and adulation for the past 40 years since his famous win at Aintree.
He also trained for a spell in the 1990s, based in Newmarket, before calling it a day in 1999.
He said: “It wasn’t me who set it (the charity) it was the people of this country. When I won the National, lots of people who had backed him sent their winnings into the Royal Marsden, care of me. Professor Peckham, Nick Embury thought it was a good idea to set up a charity and we didn’t know what we were going to do with the money. Quite a lot of money was set up and we thought we have got to do it professionally because people had been so good to send their money we had to come up with a proper use for it.
“We have raised around £15million. We built a research laboratory at the Royal Marsden and it is still going. We built the new one at Norwich – Size Park there. That is the bees’ knees. Professor Colin Cooper was in charge in the Marsden and has moved there. He still does a bit at the Royal Marsden, but Norwich is his place now. They do some fantastic jobs.”
Champion has been back at Aintree many times since, being inducted into the Grand National Legends hall of fame in 2013.
He is hoping to be able to return to Merseyside this year although there will be no spectators due to the on-going coronavirus pandemic.
But he will be watching on with the many millions around the globe.
He said: “Hopefully I will be allowed to go to Liverpool. I love goingt to there. The Liverpool people you can’t beat them. They are absolutely a fantastic bunch of people. It is not just at National-time, if I go any time they are really great people.
“It will not be the same (with no spectators). (But) the main thing is that the race is on. It has a massive following throughout the world. I think my National was viewed by 400,000million people worldwide. So it is the same or even more every National.”
For more on the Bob Champion Cancer Trust go to https://www.bobchampion.org.uk/
