Grand National legend Red Rum

He was the greatest Grand National winner of all time and the horse that captured the hearts of the world.

Even if you’ve never spent a day racing or placed a single bet, if you were asked to name a famous racehorse, chances are his name would be the first to come to mind.

Red Rum. A mighty champion with a personality to match.

He was phenomenal on the racecourse, but his success was equalled in retirement. Pricking up his ears and dancing on his toes at countless public appearances, he was adored by the world and became a household name.

Red Rum, or Rummy as he was affectionately known, was bred to be a sprinter but his destiny lay in the jumps.

As his career progressed, his success was patchy and he began costing owner Lurline Brotherton a fortune in vets’ bills thanks to a bone disease called pedalostitis.

Just eight months before his first historic Grand National win, she sold him for a snip at 6,000gns. The seven-year-old went to the trainer Donald “Ginger” McCain and there began a partnership that would last 23 years.

Ginger, who died in 2011, had a dream of winning the biggest prize in jump racing. But even he could never have predicted the astounding success that Red Rum would achieve over the next five years.

In 1973 he won the Grand National at Aintree and beat Golden Miller’s course record. In 1974 he won the race again. In the same season he landed the Scottish National and narrowly missed out to Red Candle in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury.

In 1975 and 1976 he came a respectable runner-up in the Grand National but Ginger and his team were going for the hat-trick.

It came in 1977 – the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year – when he was guided home by Tommy Stack, who had replaced Brian Fletcher as Red Rum’s jockey in 1976, and galloped straight into the history books.

Rummy became a national hero. He switched on the illuminations in Blackpool and famously appeared on the set of the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year Awards.

He made public appearances all over the place and became a media luvee with special appearances on The Generation Game, Blue Peter and This is Your Life. He even had his flank stroked by a leather-clad Sally James on Tiswas.

“Everybody thought the world of him, and the little devil knew it,” Ginger often joked.

Despite the adulation, Red Rum’s true home was Aintree and there was no doubt that he would contest a sixth Grand National in 1978.

But it was not to be. The night before the big race, Rummy took lame and the stable had no choice but to declare him a non-runner. Later, it emerged that the horse had suffered a hair-line fracture and he never raced again.

Red Rum died in 1995, aged 30. Fittingly, he is buried in the shadow of the winning post at Aintree; a final resting place for a staggering equine athlete whose record remains unbroken after nearly 40 years.

And his greatness is official. Last year, Grand National sponsor Crabbie’s commissioned racing experts Timeform to answer one of horse racing’s burning questions: Who is the greatest Grand National winner of all time?

Timeform came up with a “fantasy” Grand National made up of 20 of the most spectacular winners over the race’s 176-year history. Their research took account of the age and weight of each runner plus the horses’ overall record at Aintree and the jockey’s form.

What a race that would have been, but was there ever any doubt who would triumph against some of the finest horses to grace a racecourse? There was no contest – Red Rum forever.