Bob Champion

The story of Bob Champion and Aldaniti’s comeback from serious illness and injury is the stuff of legend – and a popular film. Lucy Higginson finds out how it all started and their continuing legacy

- Lucy Higginso

FEW stories in racing have captured public imagination like that of Bob Champion piloting Aldaniti to victory in the 1981 Grand National. The jockey had very nearly lost his life to cancer; the horse had fought back from major leg injuries and a recommendation that he be put down. Their win was the stuff of fairy tales, and indeed inspired a number of books and a hit movie.

But Bob Champion’s life is much more than that of a cancer survivor who clawed his way back to win the National. A fine horseman who worked hard to become a top jockey with some 500 or so winners to his name globally, his life has been shaped by his love of racing. And the affection the horse world has for him has helped him become an unassuming hero of cancer research, helping to raise huge sums for the Trust that bears his name.

A LIFE with horses was always a possibility for Bob, for he comes from generations of huntsmen. His father, Bob senior, worked for 17 years with the Cleveland, his uncle Jack was huntsman for over 40 years of the Old Surrey and Burstow, and his other uncles Nimrod and Bob have similarly enduring reputations with the Ledbury and West Kent.

Despite an inauspicious riding debut that ended in a pile of nettles, Bob was soon hunting “most Mondays and Thursdays – I didn’t go very well with school work. We’d have stone walls in Monday country and the vale in Saturday country,” remembers Bob. “I’d jump five-bar gates on my 13.2hh pony – I was too lazy to open them.”