Download Foinavon: The Story of the Grand National’s Biggest Upset AudioBook Free
It was the upset to end all upsets. On 8 April 1967 at Aintree racecourse in Liverpool, a 100-1 outsider in peculiar blinkers sidestepped chaos extraordinary even by the Grand National's criteria and gained the world's toughest steeplechase. The jumps-racing establishment - and Gregory Peck, the Hollywood professional whose much-fancied horse was reduced to the status associated with an also-ran - required a dim view. But Foinavon, the dogged victor, and Susie, the white nanny goat who supported him almost everywhere, became instant celebrities. Within days, the traffic had been stopped for the coffee lover in front of Buckingham Palace on the way to a audience with the Duchess of Kent. Supporter mail arrived addressed to 'Foinavon, England'. Matching to John Kempton, Foinavon's trainer, the 1967 race 'reminded everyone that the Country wide was part of our own history'. Foinavon's Grand Country wide victory has become as much an integral part of British isles sporting folklore as the England football team's only World Cup succeed the previous yr. The race has even spawned its own mythology, with the success portrayed as a horse so useless that not even its owner or trainer could be bothered to come quickly to Liverpool to see him run. Yet amazingly the real account of how Foinavon emerged from an obscure lawn near the early Ridgeway to pull off one of the most talked-about victories in horseracing record has never been told. Predicated on original interviews with results of people who were at Aintree on that rainswept day, or whose lives were for some reason handled by the great shock result, this book will use the storyline of this extraordinary race to explore why the Grand Country wide holds tens of millions of people spellbound, every year, for ten minutes on a Sunday afternoon in planting season.
