Category: Trainers and Owners

The record for training the most Grand National winners is held, jointly, by George Dockeray, Fred Rimell and Donald ‘Ginger’ McCain, who all saddled four winners apiece. Of course, all three of them are deceased and, of current, active trainers, just two have saddled more than one Grand National winner.

The first of them was Nigel Twiston-Davies who, in 1998, saddled the Welsh Grand National winner Earth Summit to victory at Aintree and, four years later, repeated the feat with Bindaree. Indeed, his second victory in the Grand National renewed his zest for National Hunt racing at a time when he was winding down his training career. After a poor season, in which he would eventually saddle just 35 winners – his lowest seasonal total for a decade – Twiston-Davies was adamant he was retiring. Even the day after Bindaree won the National, he said, ‘I never ever wanted to be a trainer. That happened by accident. So I wouldn’t be giving up a career I always wanted to do.’ However, by his own admission, ‘…Bindaree changed everything.’

The second current trainer who has won the Grand National more than once is Gordon Elliott, who has recently returned from a six-month ban for bringing the sport of horse racing into disrepute. Elliott’s faux pas has been well chronicled elsewhere, but he became the youngest ever trainer of a National winner when saddling Silver Birch to victory in 2007 and added wins two and three with back-to-back victories for Tiger Roll in 2018 and 2019.

As far as the Grand National is concerned, the name ‘McCain’ will always be most closely associated with the late Donald ‘Ginger’ McCain, who saddled the legendary Red Rum to three victories, in 1973, 1974 and 1977. In 2004, with his glory days seemingly far behind him, McCain saddled Amberleigh House to win the Grand National for a fourth time, thereby joining George Dockeray and Fred Rimmell as jointly the most successful trainer in the history of the Aintree showpiece. McCain saddled his final National runners in 2006 and retired from the training ranks, turning over the licence at his stables, on the Cholmondley Castle Estate in Cheshire, to his son, Donald Jnr..

McCain Jnr. Did not make an immediate impact at Aintree, although he did saddle Cloudy Lane, owned by Trevor Hemmings, to finish sixth in the National in 2008 and eighth two years later. However, on an unseasonably hot day in April, 2011, McCain Jnr. followed his father – who watched on, calmly, but proudly, from the paddock – into Aintree folklore by winning the Grand National with Ballabriggs. Also owned by Trevor Hemmings, and ridden by Jason Maguire, Ballabriggs withstood a strong challenge from Oscar Time on the run-in, staying on well to win by 2¼ lengths, with defending champion Don’t Push It a further 12 lengths away in third place.