Noble Yeats wins the Grand National 2022

 Noble Yeats wins the Grand National 2022

It is, without a doubt, one of the more endearing sights on the British sporting calendar. It's been with us for a couple of centuries now so we're more or less used to it as one of the most revered horse races anywhere in the world. It normally comes into view every spring just as the first yellow daffodils make their yearly appearance in England's finest parklands and gardens. We do look forward to it because it's part of our heritage, part of the furniture, rather like the old armchair sitting in the corner of your living room.

The running of the Grand National 2022 this year welcomed back to those hyper enthusiastic racing fans who had so painfully missed the last two years of the fiercely competitive jump season because of the coronavirus and things that just got in the way. Even those reliable bookmakers have had to shut up shop as well but there can be nothing more thrilling than a good, old fashioned punt or bet on the Grand National. We do it regularly as clockwork and somehow it reminds the British of their Britishness. 

So you wander off to the bookies, slip in hand, money to spare and confidence at its highest. You pencil in the names of your horses, sticking a pin quite avidly into a copy of the Racing Post Grand National list of runners and riders and just hope for the best. It is one of those ritualistically satisfying practices that most of us take for granted and almost as synonymous with Saturday afternoons as washing the car on a Sunday morning. 

Then we scan the names, jockeys, trainers and owners for any further indication of the skills and personalities of the horses. We know that for three successive years during the 1970 one of the most charming horses of all time galloped home to victory and Aintree just fell in love with him. His name was Red Rum and Red Rum was one of those exceptional horses who, apart from being one of the greatest athletes on four feet, also once appeared on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show which is pretty good going considering that only humans should be laying claim to such an exalted accolade. 

Tragically though back in 1956 a horse by the name of Devon Loch was literally within a stirrup's distance of charging home towards the winning post in the Grand National when fate intervened. With the Queen Mother willing home her equine friend to victory, Devon Loch stumbled and wobbled, legs buckling and then tipping his jockey ignominiously off the horses back. The poor, helpless jockey would become one of English horse racing's most distinguished novelists writing goodness knows how many books. His name was Dick Francis and even now it seems like one of those horrendous moments in sport when everything you'd planned and trained for suddenly go up in smoke. 

But late Saturday tea time as most of us were probably digesting the final stages of the Premier League football season, the Grand National provided us with another welcome distraction. For some of us, horse racing is very much a personal choice but there can be no doubt that the industry is now picking up and achieving a much deserved resurgence. It would be a day like no other for one Sam Waley Cohen, one of sports more admirable amateurs and now enjoying his last race before retirement. 

In what was very much a family affair Waley Cohen approached the final fences with all the self assurance of a man who knew that this would be the most significant achievement of his career. He'd worked away with selfless dedication, waking up every morning at the crack of dawn and clambering onto Noble Yeats. After some gentle motivational exercises with Noble Yeats, Waley Cohen would head for the gallops in much the way that most of his predecessors had done throughout the decades and centuries. 

And so they lined up in the Liverpool spring winds, man, woman and horse in perfect harmony, gingerly moving towards the starting tape at Aintree, circling around each other and then finding just the right place to get a good start. Horse racing has missed horse racing, the boisterous tic tac men and women who now take bets electronically rather than a simple blackboard. How they've longed to see  the serene trotting of geldings and steeds around orderly parade grounds and then the preparation for the big race. 

Horse racing aficionados have missed the earthiness of the jump and flat season, the insider knowledge on renowned jockeys, the trainers with their flat caps and panama hats and the riders themselves, fit and strapping figures whose horses belong to Arab sheikhs or enterprising Irish businessmen or women who do their utmost to look after their lovely animals. 

On Saturday the father of Waley Cohen, Robert, orange scarf wrapped comfortingly around his neck, grinned radiantly as he accompanied his precious horse away from the cheering Aintree hordes. The most remarkable steeplechase in the world had done it again. We learnt later that the Waley Cohen family had given generously to charities with substantial amounts of money. Sometimes sport gets it so right that you begin to think that other sports should invariably follow in its esteemed footsteps. Saturday meant so much to those who love the sound of thundering hooves sprinting over the always forbidding Becher's Brook and the Chair and those gruelling stampedes towards the last fences. For Noble Yeats this almost sounded like a celebration of Irish poetry. The Grand National was certainly poetry in motion.