How the slowest horse won — and caused the biggest upset in Grand National history

On a grey October morning, along a Berkshire lane leading up to the Ridgeway amid fields stuffed with pheasant, 30 of us joined a mini-pilgrimage. The former champion jockeys Graham Thorner and Stan Mellor had made it along with Marcus Armytage, who won the Grand National on Mr Frisk. There, too, were a cluster of racing historians including Chris Pitt and John Pinfold. More importantly, the former trainer John Kempton and the former jockey John Buckingham were present with the author David Owen for the unveiling of a plaque to a horse whose name will never be forgotten in jump racing: Foinavon was the 100–1 winner of the 1967 Grand National after he and jockey Buckingham alone avoided the 23rd fence pile-up that devastated the field. Until then commentators only ever referred to the 23rd as ‘the fence after Becher’s’. Since then it has been ‘the Foinavon fence’.

It was in the Grey Ladies livery yard near Compton, in those days known as Chatham Stables, that Foinavon shared a box with a goat called Susie (who accompanied him to Aintree) and where his body lies buried.