Racing: Richard Pitman 'Ride of my life' burns bright in Pitman memory

Thirty years after the most agonising Grand National defeat, every detail remains vivid in the losing jockey's memory

Frankley service station on the M5 is not the most evocative backdrop to the story of one of the most memorable of Grand Nationals, but that does not deter former jockey, commentator, horse-breeder and racing novelist Richard Pitman, who must have related the tale a thousand times, but can never have done so more stirringly. He even delivers sound effects – horses snorting, hooves thundering. I am captivated, as is a family sitting nearby, somewhat to the detriment of their sausage, beans and chips.

It is 30 years since Pitman rode the great Australian champion Crisp to within two strides of victory at Aintree, only to be pipped at the post by Red Rum, who of course was to win the Grand National twice more, in 1974 and 1977. "And although I've had a lot of concussion, and sometimes can't remember what day it is, I remember every blade of grass from that race," says Pitman, who had ridden Crisp since he first arrived at Fred Winter's yard in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire.

In his native Australia, Crisp had obliterated all-comers over two miles, but the handicapping was becoming so punitive that his owner, Sir Chester Manifold, decided to send him to Winter, to take on the best of British.

With Pitman on board, Crisp made his British debut in a decent handicap at Wincanton, was given 12st 7lb, and demolished the field by 15 lengths. He took on the best two-milers, such as Tingle Creek, and made them look like carthorses. "We smashed track records at places like Newbury, Kempton Park, Grade One tracks," Pitman tells me. "He jumped for fun. When he saw a fence he'd be, 'let me at it!'"

Crisp's first major test was the 1971 Cheltenham Festival, in what is now the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Once again, he romped home, but not in tandem with Pitman, who had smashed his ankle three days earlier in a fall at Sandown. "I watched it," recalls Pitman, "from my hospital bed. It was heartbreaking."

The following year, Winter decided to run Crisp in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. But over three miles and a quarter, the two-miler needed different tactics. Winter told Pitman to hold him back, but Crisp was an instinctive front-runner. "He sulked. It robbed him of his natural way of doing things. We finished fifth."

Despite that setback, Winter decided to aim Crisp at the 1973 Grand National. "It's a funny thing," says Pitman, "but over the years, two-mile horses have seemed to get the Grand National trip well. It's as if they run the four and a half miles in two halves. They get a breather, then run a second race."

Crisp started as 9-1 joint favourite with Red Rum, who had been winning lots of races but was manifestly a less classy horse. The handicapper gave Crisp 12st, Red Rum only 10st 5lb. Over and over, Pitman and Winter discussed their game plan.

"Fred told me not to go tearing off like a madman. He said: 'Set off in front, and because you're a senior jockey riding for a good stable, people will respect you.' The idea was to slow the race down from the front. Lester Piggott used to do it on the Flat. You can sometimes kid the other jockeys, who think, 'he knows what he's doing'. You slow it down to suit yourself."

On the morning of the big race, Pitman and Winter walked the course. Winter always wanted his Grand National runners to keep to the inside, where the drops are steeper, the turns sharper. They both knew that would suit Crisp, but as soon as the race began, Pitman realised that the other part of the plan, to keep him in front but restrained, was not going to work. Crisp set off like a dervish. "There's a long, long run to the first fence, and when he spotted it he couldn't get there quick enough," says Pitman. "Before he touched the ground he could see the next one. He was almost galloping in mid air, it was just magic."

But Crisp and Pitman were not alone. On the outside was Bill Shoemark on Grey Sombrero, a winner of the Whitbread Gold Cup. Not that Pitman was remotely perturbed by their presence, as Crisp flew towards Becher's Brook.

"The drop at Becher's was 10ft from the top – it's not as big now – and you had to let the reins slip through your fingers, and sit back in the saddle to act as ballast and keep the horse's backside down, because once his tail comes past your eyeline, you're in trouble. On landing, a lot of horses' noses touch the ground. But Crisp jumped it so cleanly, I never even felt the jolt of the drop.

"The next one is the Foinavon fence which caused the débâcle (in 1967, when the rank outsider Foinavon emerged from the mayhem to win), and that's another trap, because it's the tiniest fence. At Becher's you're expecting the ground to be there and it's not; at the next you're expecting the ground not to be there but it meets you quicker than you think. The whole place is a series of tricks."

Crisp arrived at the right-angled Canal Turn several lengths clear of Grey Sombrero. "Even on the first circuit," says Pitman, "you can win or lose a Grand National at the Canal Turn, because any length you can gain in the air is more economical than having to gallop it. And as you turn you can see the grandstand, which is always exciting. We were steadily going clearer and clearer, and we flew the Chair, and then I heard on the commentary that Grey Sombrero had fallen at the Chair; in fact, he broke his shoulder and was killed. It was so sad." Grey Sombrero had been 10 lengths back; Crisp now led the rest of the field by 25 lengths.

"This was the most amazing of Nationals, because I could hear the drmmm drmmm of my horse's feet on the fast ground. It was eerie. Normally you hear crashing and banging and jockeys cursing, but there was nothing, except drmmm drmmm and the commentary, and Crisp was showing no signs of weakening. He was saying, 'let me at it! I want to eat the fences, not jump them'.

"At Becher's second time round I saw David Nicholson sitting on his horse. I remember it vividly, because he had his arms folded and the horse was picking grass, like an Indian chief at the top of a mountain. He shouted: 'Richard, you're 33 lengths clear. Kick on and you'll win'."

At the same time, Pitman could hear the unmistakable commentary of Michael O'Hehir. "And Red Rum is coming out of the pack, but Brian Fletcher is kicking him hard," cried the excitable Irishman, now, sadly, watching through the celestial binoculars. "I thought, 'that'll do me'," recalls Pitman, "but I wasn't cocky, I knew we had to conserve energy. We flew Becher's as if it didn't exist, cut across the Canal Turn and saved three lengths there, and everything was going to plan, then up over Valentine's and the next few, the stands coming nearer all the time. I had a look over my shoulder and could see Red Rum, but he was very distant.

"From there we had three to jump. We jumped the third-last fine, and then, between the third-last and second-last, the whole picture changed. It was like petrol going out of a car. Suddenly his legs started going sideways. He had these floppy ears, which he kept sort of half-cocked, and the strength even went out of his ears. He had gone to the bottom of his barrel.

"He jumped the second-last out of instinct, and went to the last, and now I can hear Red Rum coming. Now, Red Rum was different from most horses, because as he exhaled his nostrils flapped, and made a noise. They went pwwwrrr, pwwwrrr, and I can still hear this drumming, drmmm drmmm, but now there's apwwwrrr, pwwwrrr, and it was then that I made a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

"I thought, 'I've got to wake the old boy up, get him out of his reverie'. And I made a mistake that a boy starting out shouldn't make, let alone a senior jockey. I picked the stick up in my right hand to give him a whack, but I had to go right-handed to get round the Elbow. The instant I lifted my hand, he fell away left-handed. So I quickly put the stick down, gathered the reins, and pulled him back.

"But I had to change his stride pattern, and he lost momentum. I got him to the Elbow, which is half-way up the 494-yard run-in, and I've got the rail to lean on now, because a horse's instinct is to race a rail. I could hear very loudly drmmm, drmmm, pwwwrrr, pwwwrrr, and he could sense Red Rum coming. Even in his almost drunken state of exhaustion he tried to quicken, but he'd given his all. Two strides from the post thatpwwwrrr, pwwwrrr became reality."

Such a great horse, giving so much weight away to another fine horse, had deserved to be a legendary winner, not a legendary loser.

Still, trainer and owner took the defeat with admirable stoicism; Crisp's stable lad, Chippy Chape, less so. "He looked as though someone had shoved a red-hot poker up his backside," recalls Pitman.

His own emotions swung, pendulum-like, from devastation to elation. By the time the horse was being led in, he was aglow with a strange kind of euphoria. "I knew," he says, "that it had been the ride of my life." His then wife, Jenny, cried all the way home (10 years later, she would become the first woman to train a Grand National winner, Corbiere). Pitman, by contrast, remained on cloud nine.

Even in defeat, Crisp had broken, by fully 20 seconds, a track record that had stood for 40 years. All told, Pitman rode in six Grand Nationals, and, in the commentary box, saw his son, Mark, on Garrison Savannah, pipped by Seagram rather as he and Crisp had been pipped by Red Rum. But no Grand National will ever be as vivid in his memory as the 1973 version, and no race will ever supplant the Grand National in his affections. "It eats me up," he says. "If the BBC lost the National, I'd retire tomorrow and go and live in Florida. I've been commentating on it since 1975. I couldn't stand watching and not be a part of it."

As for Crisp's defeat, Winter and he never discussed it, in fact it was not even mentioned until three weeks later. "I'd had a lot of rides since, and I used to drive him to and from race meetings in his car. We were on our way back from Plumpton one day, and he was slumped in his seat, asleep. He woke up, opened one eye, and said to me: 'You know why you got beat, don't you?' I said: 'Yep'. He said: 'Well, there's no point discussing it, then'. He was a great man. Others I can think of would have dragged you off and headbutted you."

Crisp ran only once more, at Doncaster the following season. One by one the other runners were withdrawn, until the race turned into a match, off level weights, between him and Red Rum. Crisp won by 10 lengths, but injured himself in doing so, and was retired.

"He went up to Scotch Corner, and hunted for the next eight seasons. He died out hunting, and was buried at the entrance of his then-owner's estate. They planted a cherry tree over him, which flowers at Grand National time." Pitman takes a sip of stone-cold tea and smiles. "It's nice to think that every year the tree will cry tears of blossom over his grave."

Richard Pitman the life and times

Born: January 1943.

Lives: Wantage, Oxfordshire, with second wife, Mandy, and their two daughters, where he also breeds racehorses.

Education: Fails all nine O-levels at Tewkesbury Grammar School.

Career: Becomes stable jockey for Fred Winter. Aged 16 he meets first wife, Jenny, at a Leicestershire racing stable. Has two sons, Mark (who also becomes a jockey) and Paul. Divorced after 10 years.

Riding highlights: Wins Champion Hurdle, Hennessy Gold Cup, Mackeson Gold Cup and the King George VI Chase.

Runner-up to Red Rum in 1973 Grand National on Crisp. Retires in 1976 after 15 years in the saddle with 470 winners from more than 5,000 rides.

TV career: After retiring joins BBC commentary team on National Hunt racing, appearing on Grandstand, Sportsnight and Breakfast Time. Also presents on BSB and Satellite Information Services. Joins Racing Channel as a presenter in 1995. Station folds in January 2003. "It's a very sad day. I was here for the wedding and I'm here for the funeral as well," he says.