THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

JOSH GIFFORD AND RED RUM — 1968

Copyright Valerie Martin 2003

When Red Rum was originally put up for sale in his country of birth both he was sold for only 400 guineas at the sales in Dublin.

A fact you may not know is that Findon's National Hunt trainer, Josh Gifford, enjoyed the distinction of once being Red Rum's jockey in the great horse's first race attempt over hurdles.

That was on 18th September, 1968, in the Junior Novices' Hurdle for three-year-olds at Cheltenham over two miles 200 yards.  Red Rum (or Rummie to his friends), an 8-1 chance, was three years old and beaten five lengths into second place by Acastus.  Red Rum was trained by Bobby Renton and ran another nine times over timber that season.  He won three of his races but was not partnered by Josh again.

In Red Rum's 10 year career he had twenty-four different jockeys.   As well as Josh, these included Lester Piggott.  He could also boast five trainers.   He won three flat races, three hurdle races and also 21 Steeplechases. He was also placed on 37 occasions.  His obvious love of racing held him in good stead and  he never actually fell in a race during his career — although he once unseated his jockey — and once slipped up (a coincidence being that both of these were at Haydock).

Josh started training in Findon in April, 1970 and nearly bought Red Rum a couple of times.  He said later —

 "I should have bought him twice but didn't."

He thoughtfully added —

"He came from the back streets but his destiny was Park Lane and Mayfair". 

"Red Rum was in a class of his own, a legend"

 On 2nd April 1977 Red Rum galloped into racing history by winning the Grand National for a record third time.   This steeple chaser had won the race in 1973 and 1974 and came home second in the following two years.  Before the race in 1977, there was concern that at 12 years old the horse was too old for the event.   Red Rum's win on this day in 1977 earned a steeple-chasing record of £114,000.

Red Rum is still the only horse in the history of the Grand National to win that race three times.  After his health deteriorated in October 1995, he was put down and buried near the winning post on Aintree racecourse.

 Continue if you would like to read about Early 1970s Racing in Findon.

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created exclusively for documenting life in Findon.