Saturday April 9 2022
the times8 GRAND NATIONAL
2022‘I dreamt Bindaree won but backed Marlborough - it fell
Champion’s story keeps the story alive, for me it is one
of the best stories associated with the wonderful race
and the one that hooked me in.Matt Chapman betting reporter
The bomb scare in 1997 will be the one
that will always stick in my memory. I was
working at Aintree as a news reporter for
the Racing Post and remember spending
the night in Liverpool University halls of residence with
a couple of friends. Everyone was so kind and in the
end it was a bad situation that showed Liverpool in a
great light.”Mick Fitzgerald analyst, reporter
Winning the race in 1996 on Rough Quest
and seeing my dad a few hours after the
race was probably my greatest memory.
This was a very proud moment for
both of us.Chris Hughes reporter
Earth Summit was the first racehorse I
ever sat on so his 1998 victory will always
be special to me. He had an amazing
retirement, well looked after by Marcella
[Bayliss], and is now buried on a hill in Naunton not far
from where he was trained.Ruby Walsh analyst
Papillon in 2000 – it’s an easy choice for
me. For obvious reasons [trained by my
dad and ridden by me]!Alice Plunkett reporter
My first memory is Aldaniti winning with
Bob Champion. It is 40 years since Josh
Gifford trained the wonderful chestnut
back from injury to partner with Bob who
was returning from intensive cancer treatment.Ed Chamberlin main presenter
I got into the race due to my grandfather’s
love of the sport and in 1981 I was
desperate for Spartan Missile to win and
was really angry that Aldaniti beat him! At
the age of seven, the fairytale story of Bob Champion
was completely lost on me.Sir Anthony McCoy analyst
I only have one Grand National memory.
And that’s from 2010. I didn’t know there
were any others.Oli Bell presenter
I had a dream Bindaree won but because I
used to study the form extensively as a boy,
I stuck with Marlborough instead.
Marlborough fell at the first fence and
Bindaree won the Grand National.The ITV Racing
team share
some of their
memories of the
Randox Grand
National...
Young and gifted
Noble Yeats can
keep it in family
for Emmet Mullins
While statistically the trainer’s first Grand National runner is not ideal
for Aintree, he could yet prove a big player, Donn McClean reports
got him qualified for the Grand National. In fairness, it
was unlikely that he would not qualify — there were
only four runners in the race. He just had to complete.
The Towton Chase typically attracts just a small field:
there have not been more than six horses since 2015. It
was a good spot, a typically astute piece of placing by
Emmet Mullins.
When the owner Robert Waley-Cohen was looking
for a Grand National horse, it was not surprising that
Noble Yeats was high on his list. And so the Yeats
gelding will race in the Waley-Cohen colours in the
Grand National, with his son Sam on board.
“Sam has been over to school Noble Yeats,” Mullins
says. “We’ve discussed a few different scenarios.”Noble Yeats triumphs at
Thurles with Emmet’s
cousin Patrick aboard.
Left, Waley-Cohen will be
looking to retire with a
victory on same horserunner in the race as a trainer yet, until now, this
afternoon, when he will put the saddle on Noble Yeats
and send him into the fray. “I haven’t really thought
about it too deeply yet,” he says. “It probably won’t
really hit me until the day, until it all starts to unfold.”
That’s Emmet Mullins for you. Understated. Just go
about things as you do, softly, quietly. And that is
reflected in his training methodology, in his horses. In
Noble Yeats, though, he has a horse who could be a big
player in the Grand National.
“We have been thinking about him as a Grand
National type for a while,” he says. “We weren’t
sure if we were going to go for the Irish Grand
National or the Aintree Grand National this year.
He is only seven years old so, statistically, he is
younger than ideal for Aintree. But we think that
Aintree could suit him. He has his place in the
race and he is on a nice racing weight, so
we thought that we would take our
chance.”
Strangely for a National horse, it is
less than 16 months since Noble Yeats
made his race course debut. When
he won his bumper at Thurles in
January 2021, already it looked as if
stamina would be his forte, given
how well he stayed on at the end of
2½ miles on heavy ground. He won his
maiden hurdle on his first and only run to
date over hurdles at Navan in March 2021.
That was just over a year ago. His learning
curve has been steep.
He won his beginners’ chase at Galway in
October over an extended 2¼ miles, way
short of his optimum distance. In order to
qualify to run in the Grand National, he had
to finish in the first four in a steeplechase
over three miles or more, so Mullins took
him to Wetherby in February for the grade
two Towton Chase, in which he ran a big race
to finish second behind the high-class staying
novice chaser Ahoy Senor.
As well as putting up one of the best
performances of his life, that performance alsoH
edgehunter still hurts. He was sitting at
home and watching the 2005 Grand
National on television when he could have
been there in the thick of it all with the
Willie Mullins team. For Emmet Mullins,
the Grand National was massive then and it is massive
now. It was always the race that you did not want to
miss.
He remembers Earth Summit winning the National
in 1998 — he watched from afar, from Warrington
Equestrian Centre, where everything stopped and
they all tuned in. He remembers Bobbyjo, the first
Irish-trained winner since L’Escargot, and he
remembers Papillon, the second, and he
remembers Hedgehunter all right.
“My mother said that I had to stay at home
and study for my Junior Cert,” he says ruefully.
“I was gutted. And I could have gone, for all the
study that was done!”
He rode in the race in 2009, Mon
Mome’s year. He rode Chelsea Harbour
for his uncle Tom. Chelsea Harbour had
a chance too, he had completed the
previous year, he had finished ninth
behind Comply Or Die, and he had
finished fourth in the Leinster National
at Naas on his last run before the 2009
Grand National.
“There was a great buzz about the place,”
he recalls. “It was great to be a part of it. I
remember going down to the start, going down
to have a look at the first fence. I was the first
one to get down to the first fence, and I
remember the crowds there. They hadn’t
seen a horse all day, and [I remember]
the cheering when I got there. Just for
me! That was when it hit me, that I
was part of something special.”
Chelsea Harbour got no further
than the third fence in 2009. He jumped the fence
on the inside, right beside the winner Mon Mome,
but clipped the top of it and came down. That did
not deter Emmet Mullins, nephew of Willie. He
did not ride in the race again and he has not had a