Josh Gifford, who has died aged 70, was four times champion National Hunt jockey but will be best remembered as the trainer of Aldaniti, winner of the 1981 Grand National, one of the most famous in the race’s history.
Aldaniti’s victory was remarkable for the fact that, only months earlier, it had appeared to be out of the question. Throughout his career, the horse had been plagued by injury, with two bouts of tendon trouble and a fractured hock-bone. By early 1980 he was so crippled that Gifford feared that Aldaniti would never see a racecourse again.
Meanwhile, Gifford’s stable jockey Bob Champion — who had been associated with Aldaniti since riding him to victory in his debut race in 1974 — had been suffering from cancer, for which he had undergone a gruelling regime of chemotherapy.
It was not until February 1981 — barely two months before the Grand National — that horse and jockey returned to action, Aldaniti winning the Whitbread Trial Handicap Chase at Ascot as the 14-1 outsider of eight runners. A tilt at the Cheltenham Gold Cup was ruled out in favour of the National, for which Aldaniti was allotted 10st 13lb.
On the day of the race Gifford’s horse was backed down to 10-1, second favourite behind Spartan Missile. Aldaniti gave his supporters an anxious moment at the very first fence, when he stood off too far and almost came down; but by the 11th he had made his way to the front and was jumping superbly.
Although he remained in front, in the long run-in after the last, Spartan Missile, under the 54-year-old John Thorne, was closing fast; but Champion kept Aldaniti to his task to win by four lengths. Their reception in the winner’s enclosure was one of the most emotional ever seen at Aintree.
It was a remarkable training feat by Gifford, who before the race had correctly predicted the finishing order of the first three home: “In my opinion there are only three runners: Aldaniti, Spartan Missile and Royal Mail.”
The trainer also won praise for promising Champion, throughout the jockey’s lengthy and ultimately successful treatment for cancer, that his job as stable jockey was secure. The story of horse, trainer and jockey was later turned into a film, Champions (1984), with John Hurt as the triumphant jockey and Edward Woodward playing Gifford.
In the years following the race, millions of pounds were raised for the Bob Champion Cancer Trust. Aldaniti raised more than £800,000 when he was walked from Buckingham Palace to Liverpool in 1987.
Joshua Thomas Gifford was born at Huntingdon on August 3 1941, the son of a farmer and point-to-point enthusiast. Josh was riding from his early years, and brought home his first winner on the Flat at Birmingham in July 1956, when he was still only 14. Later that year he won the Manchester November Handicap, and in 1957 the Irish Lincolnshire and the Chester Cup.
The prospect of a glittering career on the Flat evaporated when his weight hit 10 stone, and Gifford turned to National Hunt racing as second jockey behind Fred Winter at Ryan Price’s Downs Stables at Findon, West Sussex. In 1962 he was crowned Champion National Hunt Jockey, retaining the title the following year. He later fractured his thigh in a fall at Nottingham, then broke it again in a motor accident, and was forced out of riding for 15 months; but he came back to reclaim his title in 1967 with 122 winners (one more than Fred Winter’s record set 14 years earlier), and was champion again in 1968.
As a jockey, Gifford’s notable winners included Forty Secrets (1962 Welsh National); Beaver II (1962 Triumph Hurdle); Sir Edward (1966 Long Walk Hurdle); Border Jet (1967 Sun Alliance Chase); Charlie Worcester (1967 Mackeson Gold Cup); and Larbawn (1969 Whitbread Gold Cup) . He also won the Schweppes Gold Trophy four times between 1963 and 1967.
He retired from the saddle in April 1970 at the age of 28. During his 14 years as a jockey he rode 642 winners over jumps. In some 30 rides over the National fences at Aintree he failed to finish the course on only four occasions.
Gifford took over Ryan Price’s yard at Findon . It was Gifford himself who originally bought Aldaniti, in 1974, although he later sold him to the shipbroker Nicholas Embiricos, in whose colours he won the 1981 National. Under Gifford’s guidance, in 1979 Aldaniti finished third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and second in the Scottish Grand National.
Success at the Cheltenham Festival was slow in coming for Gifford: his first winner there was not until 1988, when he sent out Golden Minstrel to win the Kim Muir Chase. In 1993 he won the Queen Mother Champion Chase with Deep Sensation.
Other training successes included Approaching (1978 Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup); Kybo (1978 Ascot Hurdle and Christmas Hurdle); Door Latch (1985 and 1986 SGB Chase); French Goblin (1988 Long Walk Hurdle); Saffron Lord (1988 H&T Walker Gold Cup); Pragada (1988 Coral Golden Hurdle Final); Envopak Token (1989 Sun Alliance Chase); Comandante (1990 Arkle Chase); Bradbury Star (1993 and 1994 Mackeson Gold Cups); and Topsham Bay (1993 Whitbread Gold Cup).
He retired from training in 2003, when he handed over the yard to his son Nick. Josh Gifford’s last runner was Skycab, which won at Sandown, to the delight of racegoers. In all he had trained 1,586 winners.
He was appointed MBE in 1989.
Josh Gifford married, in 1969, the show jumper Althea Roger-Smith, with whom he had a son and a daughter. His daughter, Tina Cook, became one of Britain’s leading eventers.
Josh Gifford, born August 3 1941, died February 9 2012
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