Low life
Hold on to your money
Jeffrey Bernard
Ever since that ridiculous but charming romp of a film, National Velvet, starring Elizabeth Taylor, I have sometimes won- dered what in reality would have happened to Miss Taylor had she been found in the jockey's changing-room in a vulnerable condition after two circuits of Aintree, plus looking like she did in those days. Knowing most jockeys as I do, I shudder to think, and would have thought Roman Polanski would be the best person to direct the end of that film.
The Grand National is a race I have never been able to take too seriously, with the exception of the 1973 running of it, which is to say I am something of a snob about it. Compared with the better steeplechases which are not handicaps, headed, of course, by the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the National seems to me to be a long-distance handicap run on a Saturday afternoon which gets almost everybody into a flutter. • I am not saying that there haven't been some great horses that have taken part in it, or that there haven't been great exploits — just look at Red Ruin — but the classic performance for me will always be that of Crisp who, in the 1973 race I mentioned, magnificently failed by just three quarters of a length to give Red Rum no less than 231bs. It brought tears to my eyes, so God knows what it did to Crisp's trainer, Fred Winter. I telephoned him, incidentally, on his latest and 70th birthday to wish him a happy one, but he still can't speak because of the stroke he had and Diana relayed our messages.
A lot of Grand Nationals have had one or two ridiculous aspects for me. I had heard some time before the race in 1966 that Anglo was in with a squeak. I had been standing on the gallops one morning at the crack of dawn with Fred and he pointed to a fairly average-looking chestnut and said, 'That one will stay for ever.' Such words from such men do not go unheeded. At the time I was living with something of an old witch who had some money and a nice house in Chelsea and I had nothing, not even the will power to leave and lash out on my own.
Came the day of the National and I crept out and borrowed and scraped together some money to put on the chestnut that could stay forever and he won by no less than 20 lengths at the amazing price of 50- 1. I remember trying to look miserable or at least nonchalant after the event, and I crept upstairs to salvage a toothbrush, razor and shirt, put them in a carrier bag and fled the premises. As it turned out, it was a leap from the frying-pan into the fire, for that very evening I met she who was to become my third wife. But that's another story and most of you are far too young to hear it.
When I was writing two weekly columns for the Sporting Life in 1970/71, I actually went to Aintree twice to witness the jump- strewn cavalry charge. A couple of the more experienced jockeys advised me to stand by the third fence, which is the first open ditch, if I wanted to see some action, but I chose to stand by the Chair, which is the biggest fence in the world — or was. All hell broke loose at the third and from where I stood at the Chair not a single horse touched a twig and they all popped over clean as whistles. I still have a picture of Rough Quest winning the race last year on my wall to remind me of the £800 he won me, not that I need much reminding. But, money apart, what a good horse he was.
This year I don't see a Rough Quest, but I do see a couple of horses I might have just shillings on. One of them is Time for a Run and the other is Avro Anson, who is 16-1 today and must shorten a little. I like to think that this particular gambler is not too superstitious but, of course, I am, and I am particularly so about the chances of any horse trained by that detestable woman whose milliner you would think would frighten most of her horses to death, Jenny Pitman. Ghastly she may be but, by God, she knows her job. A pretty good idea in view of everything else is to keep one's money for the flat.
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