Foinavon, Mon Mome, Norton's Coin and other 100/1 winners
Ahead of Monday's Irish Grand National which has seen more than its share of long-priced winners, John Ingles looks at the jumpers who have pulled off shock victories.
Two years ago Freewheelin Dylan pulled off the biggest shock in the long history of the Irish Grand National when beating his 27 rivals at odds of 150/1. The nine-year-old trained locally by Dermot McLaughlin was already the winner of five steeplechases, including the Midlands National earlier the same season at Kilbeggan, a track where he had won twice before.
However, Freewheelin Dylan’s form elsewhere that season was nowhere near the same level and he had been off for almost six months when returning at Fairyhouse after finishing last of eight when the 50/1 outsider in a Grade 3 contest at Punchestown.
But with cheekpieces on for the first time and stepping up half a mile in trip, Freewheelin Dylan made all the running under Ricky Doyle who was the first to acknowledge afterwards that he had enjoyed the run of the race. ‘I bounced out just to be handy, got an easy lead and the horse has loved it.
He jumps so much for fun. I was able to take breathers everywhere.’ The pair had a length and a quarter to spare at the line over one of the better fancied runners in the line-up, Run Wild Fred.
Remarkably, the same stable repeated the feat by sending out another long-priced winner in last year’s Irish Grand National, this time with Lord Lariat. He might not have been quite the same odds as his stablemate, but at 40/1 he was very much among the rank outsiders in the line-up.
Like Freewheelin Dylan, Lord Lariat came into the race after being freshened up by a break and his claiming jockey Patrick O’Hanlon employed the same tactics which had worked a treat on his stable-companion 12 months earlier before pulling clear on the run-in to beat Frontal Assault and favourite Gaillard du Mesnil. Sadly, a late setback has prevented Lord Lariat from defending his crown on Monday.
The last two winners of the Irish Grand National were maintaining a recent trend of long-priced winners of the race which, since 2004, has been won eight times by horses sent off at 25/1 or longer. Among the rest was the 50/1 victory of the ten-year-old mare Liberty Counsel, trained by Dot Love.
Dermot McLaughlin was also the trainer of Vics Canvas who, at the age of 13, outran huge odds of his own to finish third at 100/1 in the 2016 Grand National at Aintree. Recovering from a bad mistake at Becher’s first time round, Vics Canvas even looked a possible winner when challenging from two out before only giving best to Rule The World and The Last Samuri in the final furlong.
But where Vics Canvas failed, five other 100/1-shots have triumphed in the world’s most famous steeplechase. Best known among them is the 1967 winner Foinavon who emerged from a melee at the smallest fence on the course – the one after Becher’s which now bears his name – where loose horses brought virtually the whole field to a halt. From much further back, Foinavon’s jockey John Buckingham was able to steer a wide course and get a clear run at the fence, coming away with a lead of 100 yards over his nearest pursuers. At the line he still had 15 lengths to spare over the 15/2 favourite Honey End. Those who backed Foinavon on the Tote were rewarded with odds of 444/1!
A similar incident had led to Tipperary Tim becoming the first 100/1 winner of the Grand National in 1928. The culprit that year was Easter Hero who was leading the field on the first circuit when landing on top of the Canal Turn and falling back into the ditch which then existed on the take-off side. The resulting pile-up claimed most of the field, and by Becher’s on the second circuit only five were still going. Coming to the last, the only two remaining runners jumped it together but Billy Barton came down, leaving Tipperary Tim to come home a distance clear of the remounted runner-up.
The fact that an apparent no-hoper could win the Grand National encouraged a record field of 66 to try their luck a year later. Among them was the top-class Easter Hero again, fresh from winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup and sent off the 9/1 favourite despite his huge weight of 12-7. Tipperary Tim was back too, but dismissed as a 100/1-chance again and this time fell. But it was another 100/1-shot who prevailed, Gregalach taking over from long-time leader Easter Hero between the final two fences and going on to win by six lengths. Gregalach was no mug though; he proved a top-class chaser in his own right and contested another five Grand Nationals, carrying 12-0 or more each time and finishing second in 1931.
The second-largest field in the history of the race – 57 runners – also threw up a 100/1 winner when the Irish gelding Caughoo prevailed in 1947. The conditions played their part that year as the going was heavy at the end of the worst winter weather in living memory which had resulted in almost two months of racing in Britain being lost. As a result, many in the National field were not fully fit, though Caughoo had been able to gallop on a beach near Dublin.
As well as very testing going, there was poor visibility on the day at Aintree, but Caughoo emerged from the gloom a long way clear, winning by 20 lengths with the favourite and top weight, Prince Regent, the previous year’s Gold Cup winner, back in fourth. Accusations by the rider of the runner-up, Loch Conn, that the winning jockey, Eddie Dempsey, had pulled up on the first circuit and rejoined the race when the field came round again proved to be unfounded!
The most recent 100/1 winner of the Grand National was the Venetia Williams-trained Mon Mome in 2009. Unlike some of the other shock winners in the race’s history, there were no particular circumstances that made an upset any more likely that year. It was more a case of Mon Mome being sent off at much longer odds than some of his form merited. It was true that his last three starts before Aintree included being beaten in a novice hurdle at Towcester and finishing last in the Midlands Grand National, but it was only months earlier that he’d been sent off favourite for the Welsh Grand National (in which he was a former runner-up) on the back of winning a good handicap at Cheltenham.
Improving on his tenth place the year before when he’d been badly hampered at second Becher’s, there was no fluke about Mon Mome’s improved effort as he jumped fluently round the inner and ran on very strongly after jumping the last to win by a dozen lengths from the previous year’s winner Comply Or Die. Mon Mome might have been the last 100/1 winner of the Grand National, but there have been other big-priced winners since, notably Auroras Encore at 66/1 in 2013 and Noble Yeats, a leading contender for this year’s race after springing a 50/1 surprise in his novice season 12 months ago.
Mon Mome will be best remembered for his Aintree upset, but that wasn’t the only time he outran his odds in a big race. Just under a year later when prepping for another tilt at Aintree, he was sent off at 50/1 for the Cheltenham Gold Cup. But having got a long way behind on the second circuit, he flew up the hill to snatch third, 30 lengths behind the winner Imperial Commander with Denman second after odds-on favourite Kauto Star had fallen four out when bidding to win it for a third time.
Races like the Grand National and its Irish counterpart, with big fields and a handicap format, not to mention the additional factors of a marathon distance and, at Aintree, the unique fences, are all ingredients for throwing up shock winners from time to time. But in the Gold Cup, all things being equal, the best horses should come to the fore in what is a level-weights contest. By and large they do, but that only made Norton’s Coin’s victory at 100/1 in 1990 all the more extraordinary.
One of only three horses trained under permit by Welsh dairy farmer Sirrell Griffiths, Norton’s Coin had finished 39 lengths last of six behind Desert Orchid in the King George VI Chase earlier in the season. ‘Like anyone else I thought Desert Orchid would win’ admitted Griffiths after the Gold Cup. ‘Milking the cows this morning, I worked out that with a bit of luck we might be third.’
Even that seemed a very optimistic assessment, but Desert Orchid, sent off at odds on to repeat his victory from the year before, was already beaten going to the final fence. But that still left Norton’s Coin with 8/1-shot Toby Tobias to beat. Responding to a very forceful ride, Norton’s Coin produced a strong burst on the flat to overhaul Toby Tobias by three quarters of a length, with Desert Orchid only third, to register the biggest upset in the history of the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
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