In 1973 the Grand National was in a bad way, its very existence under threat. The owner of Aintree, Mirabel Topham, a former actress and Gaiety Girl, had been trying to sell the course for years. The stands were dilapidated, finances were rocky. The National needed a saviour.
Enter Red Rum and his jockey, Brian Fletcher. The horse had been a near-cripple, famously rescued by Ginger McCain with training sessions on Southport beach. And Fletcher’s greatest triumphs came when he should have been nowhere near a racecourse.
As the 1973 race entered its closing stages, the Australian star Crisp, ridden by Richard Pitman, was 25 lengths clear. The rest of the field had all but given up — except Fletcher, who set off in pursuit. “I thought he was mad, we all did,” said Ron Barry, who was riding Princess Camilla.
As Crisp began to tire, Pitman realised that victory was far from assured: “At the final fence I heard the sound of a horse’s hoofs beating like a drum and the sound of his nostrils flapping and getting closer.”
It was Red Rum, who flew past to win by three-quarters of a length in one of the most dramatic finishes in National history, the two horses beating the record-winning time by 20 seconds. An equine superstar was born and a sporting institution salvaged; a rescue package was put together and the Grand National lived on.
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The pair repeated the feat the next year, beating L’Escargot into second place. Red Rum was the first horse to win successive Nationals since the 1930s and remains the only one to have won three times. Fletcher, who had also won in 1968 on Red Alligator, became one of only three men to win it three times or more. However, the partnership came to an acrimonious end when he fell out with McCain.
After a defeat at Newcastle, Fletcher told the trainer he felt the horse was past his best — still with the stamina for Aintree’s epic slog, but not quick enough for shorter courses. They had finished in third place, and McCain wanted to know why Fletcher had not used his whip to move into second.
“I’m sorry, Mr McCain,” Fletcher told him, “but I’d never abuse Red Rum. He’s done too much for me to be knocking the spots off him just to win a few pounds’ place money.”
McCain brought in Tommy Stack to replace him. It was the lowest point of Fletcher’s career, he always said — “I was devastated.” Stack was in the saddle for Red Rum’s third National victory, in 1977.
Remarkably, Fletcher’s triumphs on Red Rum came when he should not have been riding at all. In 1972 he had fallen in a novice chase and suffered a fractured skull, lying semi-comatose in hospital for a fortnight. He returned ten months later — “I had to go to Portman Square [the Jockey Club headquarters] three times before I got my licence back” — but he continued to suffer blinding headaches, blackouts and memory loss.
“He fell out with Red Rum’s trainer over the use of the whip
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“In boxing terms I was a punch-drunk living in a hellish twilight zone,” he recalled. “Safety standards weren’t as rigorous back then; if I had the same fall today I’d never be allowed to ride again, it’s as simple as that. My reflexes were shot to pieces.”
He carried on regardless — finishing second on Red Rum in the 1975 Grand National and third the year after on Eyecatcher — but finally, driving home from a meeting at Uttoxeter, he almost blacked out on the M6 and just managed to pull over on to the hard shoulder. “After 100 tests and more, the doctor told me the next fall could leave me paralysed or even kill me.”
His racing career was over before his 30th birthday. “I was only a young man so I was heartbroken, but at the same time I didn’t want to end up dead.”
The highlight of Fletcher’s career, he always maintained, was not any of his three National wins, but his 1974 victory on Red Rum in the Scottish Grand National at Ayr (the only time the two Nationals have been won by one horse in the same year). However, it will be for his exploits at Aintree that Fletcher will be remembered. He always kept a poem written by his mother, Ruby, on his wall. It read: “While they all shout and cheer for Red Rum, I’ll be one in a million, I’ll just cheer for my son.”
Brian Fletcher was born into a farming family in Cockfield, Co Durham, in 1947. He began working with the trainer Denys Smith when he was 15. He was only 19 when Smith entrusted him with Red Alligator for the 1967 race — the year of the famous pile-up from which 100-1 shot Foinavon emerged to become the Grand National’s unlikeliest victor. Fletcher remounted to finish third and remained convinced that with a clear run he would have won.
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A year later the pair did just that, romping home by 20 lengths. However, even then Fletcher should not have been riding. He had suffered a head injury in a fall the previous day, former champion jockey Stan Mellor recalled. “He didn’t know whether it was Christmas or Easter. Everyone in the weighing room felt sorry for him. We were sure he wouldn’t be riding the next day, and these days he wouldn’t be.”
In retirement Fletcher farmed in West Auckland, County Durham, but occasionally struggled financially, and he was helped out by the Injured Jockeys Fund. Then after 25 years he moved to a 38-acre farm in Carmarthenshire, where he bred Welsh cobs. kept sheep, and took part in harness racing. His partner, Irene, survives him.
“I’m a quiet sort of lad, always have been, and I try to keep things cool,” he said in 2004. “I still get asked to do talks and that sort of thing, but I don’t look for publicity.”
He was reunited with Red Rum — by then 29 but still making public appearances — at Aintree in 1994. “It was a bit sad,” Fletcher said. “He has deteriorated so much, physically he is like an old man, haggard and drawn.” The horse died a year later and was buried by the winning post at Aintree. “I can never watch the Grand National without a tear in my eye,” Fletcher said.
Brian Fletcher, jockey and farmer, was born on May 18, 1947. He died of cancer on January 11, 2017, aged 69