LUCINDA RUSSELL dedicated One For Arthur's Grand National victory to Scotland last night and described the triumph as "dreamlike" after she became only the fourth woman to train a winner of the Aintree showpiece.
The Scottish trainer, who joined Jenny Pitman, Venetia Williams and Sue Smith as women trainers who have won the race, could not contain her glee after jockey Derek Fox gave the eight-year-old a superb ride to lift the £1m prize money.
"It means everything," said Russell, whose Arlary House stables are in Milnathort. "It's just incredible. I'm so proud of the horse. He jumped fantastic and Derek gave him a great ride. He's done us proud, he's done Scotland proud and he's done everyone at the yard proud. For a horse like that and a jockey like that what could be better?
"It's great to get these horses that finish strongly and I knew he would stay. It was a bit bold to say that, but we were right. It was funny, but everything has just gone so smoothly including winning the race. It is really dreamlike, but it's brilliant. We've got a fantastic team behind us and it's just great."
Russell revealed that Scudamore, who did not win the National as a jockey, wore his father's tie as a lucky charm. Michael Scudamore won the race on Oxo in 1959 but his son missed out despite finishing as National Hunt champion jockey on eight occasions.
"I'm delighted Scu wore his dad's tie today," added Russell. "Without him I couldn't do it."
Scudamore said: "It's very satisfying. The horse looked well in the paddock. I felt we'd done everything we possibly could to get this horse here. It's very satisfying. The horse looked well in the paddock. I felt we'd done everything we possibly could to get this horse here.
"I was worried about the ground. If you had said to me an hour before the race you can take him home now as the ground is too fast I would have put him in the lorry."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel