When I was growing up, there were three days which our family would fight tooth and nail to get home for: Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and Grand National Day. Never has there been a more family-binding (well, our family!) sporting event than that which takes place in Liverpool in April. For the uninitiated, the Grand National is a race for forty horses, run over four and a half miles, over the most famous fences ever seen; Valentines Brook, Canal Turn, Foinavon, Becher's Brook, and The (mighty) Chair (I had the privilege of seeing those fences up close and personal, and they are incredible). The stories that have come from this race truly are the stuff of legend. I urge you to look at footage of races such as 'Crisp' (1973), 'Foinavon' (1967) and the fairytale story of Bob Champion beating cancer, and then with Aldaniti, beating the other 39 horses in 1981 (they made film out of it, and the music will always bring a lump to my throat). They are just a handful of tales, and could each be a sporting moment in their own right........
For the Blaydons; Grand National Day was a glorious routine. Getting up criminally early for a Saturday morning, and picking up the Racing Post and Sporting Life before the rest of the house stirred. This gave you the double advantage of getting to use the bathroom first, and reading said papers before everyone else got up and started fighting over both!
Whatever the 'system' was that was used in picking horses, (Mum - Irish horse, Dad - go with whoever was tipped on the telly, Clare - back about 6 horses and I'm sure to win something, Paul - study the form, Adrian - pretty colours......) everyone thought the same thing.....'will this be my year??'
Phase two of Grand National Day was putting on the bets. I never thought I would use this phrase but....'in the olden days' (AAAAAAGGGGH!!) we didn't have this new-fangled thing called the internet to make things easier, so Paul and I would trudge from bookie to bookie, looking for the best prices on everyones horse. Woe betide us if we had been round every single shop, only to find out that the best price was back at the first one we visited! What made it worse was that being a wee slip of a lad, I wasn't even allowed to go in!
With phase two over, phase three was infinitely more pleasurable; that of watching Des Lynam on Grandstand (I distinctly recall one year, the program opened with Des waking up, sitting up, and saying with a smile 'it's Grand National day!!!'), and all the build-up from start, to the start, to the finish! We didn't really care who in the family won, as long as someone did. This was invariably Clare, who by the time the race had started had backed half the field! As for me - and anyone else who bets on the national - the times I won are forever etched on my memory; West Tip (1986), Mr Frisk (1990), Seagram (1991) and Comply or Die (2008). Of these, the first has to be the best; 13 years old and crying my eyes out, I really didn't know what to do with myself, apart from scream at the TV!
Now we have all growed up and flown the nest, the house is not nearly as full as it once was on Grand National Day; but the spirit lives on as phone calls fly between houses so that - at the time the ribbon goes up - everyone in the family knows who everyone else has bet on. Then on race end, more phone calls of (hopefully!) congratulations. The feeling is still there.
It is true that the Grand National (and horse-racing in general) courts controversy, and I cannot deny the objections have some merit; it can be a dangerous sport for both horse and rider. Having said that, neither can I deny the role that the race has played in my life and the lives of my family; it has and will always be a common ground which unites us as our lives, careers and personalities take us in such contrasting directions. It is for this reason that I am so grateful to it.
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