Record of mares in the Randox Grand National ahead of Snow Leopardess run on Saturday
Snow Leopardess put herself on the Grand National shortlist by winning the Becher Chase but how have mares fared in the big one?
Grey mare Snow Leopardess was a fine sight tackling the National fences for the first time in the Becher Chase at Aintree earlier in the season, jumping superbly and going with zest as she opened up a clear lead from the Canal Turn until the second last. While she held on to win by the narrowest of margins in the end, it was the promise of that performance which has made her one of the best-backed horses in the run-up to the Grand National.
Trained by Charlie Longsdon, Snow Leopardess, who has been successful in Ireland and France, as well as in Britain, has already taken an unusual career path. She sustained a leg injury when gaining her French win, over hurdles at Auteuil in September 2017, but has now won four times over fences since returning from more than two years off the track.
But rather than remaining idle during that absence, she was sent to Derby winner Sir Percy and produced a filly foal to him, now named Red Panda, who’s due to go into training with Longsdon next season. Meanwhile, Parramount, a half-brother to Snow Leopardess and representing the same connections, could run in the bumper that concludes the Grand National card on Saturday.
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The Becher wasn't the first time Snow Leopardess had been to Aintree. Her first visit came six years ago when she finished fifth in the Grade 2 mares’ bumper at the Grand National meeting. That race commemorates Nickel Coin who Snow Leopardess will be bidding to emulate on Saturday; Nickel Coin is the most recent of 13 mares to win the Grand National when successful back in 1951.
Nickel Coin won a particularly eventful renewal of the race which was dubbed ‘The Grand Crashional’ after she and Royal Tan, who was to win the race three years later, were the only two to complete the course without mishap. The race had got off to a shambolic start which led to a charge to the first as many in the field sought to recover lost ground and resulted in no fewer than 12 of them coming to grief at that fence.
While it is now more than 70 years since a mare last won the Grand National - nine more have made the frame in the interim - Nickel Coin’s win at 40/1 came just three years after another mare, Sheila’s Cottage, had been another long-priced winner at 50/1. In contrast, Snow Leopardess has already been backed down to single-figure odds for Saturday's race.
Snow Leopardess was credited by some as being the first mare to win the Becher, though that isn’t strictly true. She’s the first mare to win the modern version of the Becher which was revived in 1992 but the race has a much longer history (the autumn meeting it was formerly run at was scrapped in the 1960s) and was won in 1957 by Tiberetta, a mare who compiled a tremendous record over the National fences even though winning the big race eluded her.
Tiberetta was runner-up in the 1958 Grand National, as well as finishing third and fourth in the years either side, and she also won a Grand Sefton over the big fences, in addition to the Becher. Tiberetta left her mark on Aintree as a broodmare too. Her son Lictor won the Topham Chase over the National fences in 1976 but the pick of her foals was top-class chaser Spanish Steps who made the frame in three successive Grand Nationals in the 1970s. Tiberetta’s sister Tiberina became grandam of Red Marauder who famously won the ‘mudbath’ Grand National of 2001, another renewal in which only two completed without mishap.
Tiberetta’s second place in the Grand National came just two years after another mare, Gentle Moya, finished runner-up, but only after inheriting that position following Devon Loch’s infamous ‘belly flop’ on the run-in. Third place finishes were achieved by Miss Hunter in 1970, Eyecatcher in 1976 and 1977, and Auntie Dot in 1991, while the mares to have finished fourth in the last 70 years were Rainbow Battle in 1965, Ebony Jane in 1994 (five days after finishing third in the Irish Grand National) and the Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Dubacilla in 1995.
Another mare, Sandy Sprite, led over the last in 1971 and was seemingly going best but broke down on the run-in and faded into fifth although beaten just over four lengths at the line.
The most recent mare to go close in a Grand National, and the first since Tiberetta to finish runner-up, was Magic of Light, another dismissed in the betting when a 66/1 shot in 2019. Having her first taste of the National fences, Magic of Light took really well to the track, she too going with plenty of zest and leading the field from second Valentine’s until the last where she made a mistake, her second notable one of the race after surviving an earlier blunder at The Chair. But Magic of Light rallied gamely to chase home Tiger Roll who made his own piece of National history that year by becoming the first back-to-back winner since Red Rum. Magic of Light was more strongly fancied for last year's Grand National, sent off at 14/1, but she unseated early on.
Whatever she achieves from now on, Snow Leopardess is one of only a handful of mares to have won a race over the National fences in recent times. A couple who did so earlier this century in the Topham Chase were the Nicky Henderson-trained pair Liberthine in 2006 and Ma Filleule in 2014. Liberthine contested the Grand National 12 months later and ran well for a long way before her stamina gave out, finishing fifth.
Henderson also trained the last mare to be sent off favourite for the Grand National. That was Fiddling The Facts who started at 6/1 and was travelling strongly just behind the leaders when falling at Becher's second time round in 1999.
At the time of Nickel Coin's Grand National victory you'd have got very short odds about another mare winning the Grand National long before a female jockey ever did but Rachael Blackmore made history last April.
Maybe it will be the turn of Snow Leopardess in 2022.
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