5th June 2009 - Scudamore Dynasty - Brough Scott

When it comes to the Grand National the Scudamore family are into the heritage business. For when Tom Scudamore looks across at the starter on Saturday he will add to the most remarkable unbroken chain in the great race’s history.

It will be Tom’s 9th consecutive ride, his father Peter was in each of the 13 Nationals from 1981 to 1993, and his grandfather Michael stretched his sequence to no less than 16 from 1951 to 1966 including victory on OXO in 1959. No wonder that when Tom lined up on the diminutive Northern Starlight for his first ride at the ripe old age of 18 in 2001 he felt “ it just seemed the natural thing to do. “

Tom’s grandfather was also 18 when he first rode in 1951 with King George VI on the throne and a 50-1 shot East A Calling under the saddle and the likes of Dick Francis, Fred Winter and Pat Taafe alongside him. “Before the start,” he said yesterday, “ I remember looking across at the packed stands and thinking ‘I hope I am not up there for 20 years.’ I didn’t quite make that, but sixteen rides was not too bad an innings. “

It was certainly a lot longer than the first Scudamore experience which ended as part of the greatest ever first fence pile-up when 12 horses either fell or were brought down at the opening obstacle after the starter loosed the tapes with half the runners were facing the wrong way. “Those who were left sprinted to catch up,” says Michael, “so by the time we got to the first we were flying and the next thing I knew we were on the floor. But,” he recalls with enviable clarity, “it stood me in good stead. Afterwards I always used to jump out fast to get a good position but then would take a pull crossing the Melling Road to be in control at the first. Another ten fell there in 1952 but Legal Joy gave me a great ride and was second to Teal.”

Michael’s watchwords are ingrained so deep in the family psyche that both son and grandson unwittingly recite almost identical litanies – “take a pull before the first; go inner or outer but not down the middle; at Bechers quicken up after the footpath to get over the drop; get the approach right at the Canal Turn; the first circuit is only a warm up.”

“I don’t remember if I actually walked the course with father before my first ride,” said Peter on his way back from Kelso on Sunday, “but in a visionary sense I had been round with him so many times. Every year we would go through his old Nationals, talk about where he went, how they jumped, what people said. I don’t have a proper memory of him riding but you can see from the videos how immensely strong he was, how good at a fence. We all enjoyed it so, so much.”

Old stagers, and Michael Scudamore will be 77 in July, all too often relapse into “when men were men and fences were fences” curmudgeonliness. But Michael neither decries the present nor derides the past. “It was very different then,” he says with quiet understatement. “The fences were much more upright and the horses were a very different type, much less of the flat racer we get nowadays. The helmets were those little cork things we would pad out with rubber from used tyres and we hardly ever used goggles for fear they would smash and ruin your eyes. My way of riding Liverpool was like a cricketer, don’t make up your mind until the ball is bowled, until you get to a fence. The sensible horses back off a fraction and help you to see a stride.”

Instantly you are transported back to other horses, other days: Irish Lizard, third in 1954 who “could tap dance if he got in close but stand off from anywhere”; the talented Much Obliged whose courage failed in 1957; the former runaway O’Malley Point whose jumping was helped by the new fence aprons in 1963; and of course Oxo who had given Michael Scudamore his moment of immortality when beating a stirrupless Tim Brookshaw on Wyndburgh fifty years ago this Saturday.

“Going to the water in front of the stands,” remembers Michael, “Tim and I were second and third and he said to me ‘we’ll be in The Pictures’ meaning the Pathe News which only used to show the second circuit. He didn’t say anything more until after Bechers when he shouted that his stirrup was broken. What Tim did to finish second was fantastic but to be honest all I remember is being pleased the stirrup was broken and relieved when we got over the line.”

Victory has not yet threatened Tom Scudamore and the nearest Peter’s 13 attempts came to glory was when Corbiere returned across the Melling Road in front of his field in 1985 only to be run out of things by Mr Snugfit and Last Suspect in the straight. “It’s easy to get romantic,” says Peter, “but I can never go to Aintree without a sense of the ghosts of the past. Ever since I was a little boy in school I was so proud that my dad had won the Grand National, and just for a moment in 1985 I sensed what he must have felt on Oxo.”

Michael’s National career ended with Greek Scholar being knocked up the backside at Becher’s in 1966 and Peter closed when a brilliant opening circuit on Captain Dibble closed with the realization that a false start had rendered the race void. The grandson’s innings has already had its moments, most notably when Smarty slipped so badly at the first in 2002 that in recovering Tom pushed the bridle and blinkers askew, and after a hazardous half mile the bridle then came clean off after the Canal Turn.

Tom has a well developed sense of humour claiming that Mary Scudamore, his grandmother, “didn’t mind watching grandad because she thought he knew what he was doing, but did mind watching Dad because she thought he was stupid, and does mind watching me because she thinks I’m clever.” But there is no joking in his admiration when he says, “in our terms Grandad might have been brave to the point of insanity. But he was riding with people who had been in prisoner of war camps. They had survived a lot worse things than bad jumpers and open ditches. There was an element of ‘live the day for tomorrow is promised to no man.’”

Aintree has never been a great place for boasters but any remaining pretensions are now firmly curbed by the annual jockeys visit to the Children’s Cancer Unit at Alder Hey hospital on Friday morning. “It sets you up pretty well,” says Tom.“Most of the children don’t know who we are but they know about the National. Seeing them makes you realize how lucky you are. Instead of complaining about being jocked off or having to go all the way to Newcastle for one bad ride, you just rejoice that you can.” The Grand National attitude – that’s the finest heritage of them all.