The late Joshua Thomas ‘Josh’ Gifford died in the early hours of February 9, 2012, at the age of 70, after suffering at his yard in Findon, West Sussex, where he had trained for 33 years. As a trainer, Gifford enjoyed success at the highest level, as he had previously, as a jockey, and saddled a total of 1,586. His finest hour in the training ranks, though, came on April 4, 1981, when he saddled Aldaniti, ridden by Bob Champion, to win the Grand National and create one of the greatest sporting stories in history.
Aldaniti had sustained a career-threatening, and possibly life-threatening, leg injury at Sandown Park in November 1979, which meant he was confined to his box for six months and off the racecourse for over a year. In fact, that was just the latest in a series of injuries so severe that, without the intervention of owner Nick Embiricos, he may well have been humanely euthanised. However, he was nursed back to form sufficiently to be sent off 10/1 second favourite for the Grand National, behind only 8/1 favourite Spartan Missile, a dual winner of the Aintree Foxhunters’ Chase and, arguably, the greatest hunter chaser in history.
Champion, for his part, had sought medical advice on a swollen testicle, after being kicked by a horse, in July 1979, only to be diagnosed with testicular cancer. Given only a 30%, or 40%, chance of survival, Champion, 31, immediately embarked on powerful, extremely aggressive programme of chemotherapy, of which he later said, ‘You felt horrendous; you just felt sick 24 hours a day. A lot of people having my treatment gave up, and I nearly did one day too.’ He didn’t, though, and having completed the programme eventually recovered sufficiently to resume his job as stable jockey to Gifford, whom he later described as ‘the most loyal trainer there’s ever been’. The ‘fairytale’ story of Aldaniti, Champion and Gifford – which, in real life, reduced his trainer to tears – was immortalised by the 1984 film ‘Champions’, starring John Hurt as Champion as Edward Woodward as Gifford.
Aldaniti aside, Gifford also handled several other top-class horses, including Deep Sensation, winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1993, Bradbury Star, winner of the Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase at Sandown in 1992, narrowly beaten in both Sun Alliance Chase that year and the King George VI Chase in 1993, and winner of the Mackeson Gold Cup in 1994, among others. Perhaps rather surprisingly, he never won the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship, although he did finish runner-up behind David Elsworth in 1987/88.
Born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire on August 3, 1941, became apprenticed to trainer Cliff Beechener at the age of 11 and rode his first winner on the Flat at Brimingham Racecourse in 1956, when still not yet 15 years old. Major wins on the Flat included the Manchester November Handicap and the Chester Cup, but, after fighting a losing battle with the scales, Gifford was forced to turn his attention to National Hunt racing, with no little success. Indeed, despite being a direct contemporary of Fred Winter, Terry Biddlecombe and Stan Mellor, he formed a successful partnership with Captain Ryan Price, which, by the time of his retirement in 1970, had yielded a total of 642 winners and four National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship titles, in 1962/63, 1963/64, 1966/7 and 1967/68.
As a jockey, Gifford never won either of the premier steeplchases, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National. However, he may well have won the latter on favourite Honey End in 1967, but for the now-infamous pile-up at the fence now known as ‘Foinavon’ on the second circuit. Honey End made up ground, hand-over-first, over the remaining fences, but Foinavon – a bona fide 100/1 outsider, who had been turned down by three jockeys beforehand – was not for catching and past the post 15 lengths ahead.