Inside Track: McCain got it wrong when he said a jockette would never win a Grand National

While rummaging through bits and pieces in the office from which these pages set sail each week, I came across an Inside Track article with the headline: “Ginger is a nut to be saying things like that about lady jockeys.”

It was from 2005, and the Ginger in question was McCain, a trainer whose place in the history of National Hunt racing is assured.

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He was the one who prepared Red Rum to win three Aintree Grand Nationals and finish second on a couple of other occasions in a five-year period.

It’s a record that might never be equalled, never mind beaten. And just to show he has more to offer over the famous Liverpool course, the Stockport handler added a fourth win in jump racing's greatest race when he turned out the 2005 victor, Amberleigh House.

There was a fifth McCain winner, Ballabriggs, taking the title for Ginger’s son, Donald, after he had taken over the running of the stable.

But for all the expertise he had in training horses, Ginger got it very wrong when he said: “Horses do not win Grand Nationals ridden by women, and that’s a fact.” Thus the headline.

He wasn’t to know what was to come, but he should perhaps have been aware that 20 years before he came out with his wild and swirling words, Anne Ferris rode Benton Boy to victory in the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse. The 33/1 shot was trained by the jockey’s father, Willie Rooney, in Co Antrim.

McCain, who, when he wasn’t putting horses through their paces on the beach at Stockport, sold second-hand cars. He died in 2011, the year in which his son followed him onto the Aintree podium.

That same year, Nina Carberry became the second lady to score in the Irish National. Also a winner on turning to politics when her career was over – she took a seat for Fine Gael in the European Parliament elections – Carberry had the mount on Organisedconfusion.

The Meath lady was following in a proud family Irish Grand National tradition. Her father, Tommy, trained and rode winners, while her brothers, jockeys Paul and Philip, were also successful.

Another to do it for the ladies at Fairyhouse was Katie Walsh. The daughter of Ted Walsh and brother of Ruby had the mount on Thunder And Roses in the 2015 renewal, and giving the Sandra Hughes-trained gelding a ride the other family members would have been proud of, joined Ferris and Carberry on the honours list.

But until Rachael Blackmore came along, no lady jockey had ever ridden the winner at Aintree. McCain made his remark when it became known that Carrie Ford would be riding 16/1 chance Forest Gunner in the 2005 Aintree spectacle. He’d have felt justified when Ford’s mount finished down the field.

Blackmore’s big day arrived in 2021, when, on an occasion dripping with emotion, she brought Minella Times home in front, spectacularly given lie to McCain’s assertion. Her historic achievement won worldwide acclaim.

It didn’t end at that. The following year, Blackmore was on board for A Plus Tard’s Cheltenham Gold Cup victory. Like her Grand National winner, this lad was trained in Co Waterford by Henry de Bromhead.

Horse racing, Flat and National Hunt, was at one time a largely a male-dominated sport, but not any more. Today, nearly as many female players are involved, not all of them confined to the jockey ranks.

The race mainly under review here, the Aintree Grand National, has been won twice by horses trained by Jenny Pitman and Lucinda Russell, while Sue Smith and Venetia Williams have each had a winner. And, as mentioned above, there have been female-trained winners of the Irish equivalent.

Ladyfolk haven’t had the same impact in any of the big Flat races on this side of the Atlantic, but over in America, Julie Krone had a glittering career, riding over 3,700 winners, one of them in the famous Belmont Stakes.

But give ‘our’ lot time. A longrange forecast: Hollie Doyle to become the first jockette to ride the winner of the Epsom Derby.