The Ramblers may sound like a group brought together by a shared live of hiking.
But they are the syndicate of seven owners of Corach Rambler assembled and named by trainer Lucinda Russell to potentially create the sort of fairytale finish for which the Grand National has become synonymous.
Owners are dotted around the globe from Australia to Edinburgh, and range from a student and first-time racehorse owner to the actual breeder of what is the favourite over the big Aintree fences on Saturday.
Corach, as the nine-year-old gelding is more affectionately known, boasts six race wins including back-to-back successes at the Ultima at the Cheltenham Festival. But that only partly tells the story.
Paul Hillis ran his own construction company for years but has also dabbled in breeding for two decades. None had ever proved successful, including initially Corach, who he calls “a slow burner”.
By the age of six, he was at least managing wins at point-to-point level and Hillis’s joint owner of the horse wanted to sell his 50 per cent stake, so he duly obliged. It went for a relatively miserly £17,000 to Russell.
But Hillis did not want to entirely part company, so contacted Russell to ask if she would be interested in forming a syndicate. As Hillis puts it of the group: “I didn’t know any of them from Adam.”
The other owners steadily came on board. There was Bill Wallace, a Glaswegian who had relocated Down Under, a 30-year-old accountant called Thomas Kendall and Abby Wood, another 30-year-old who had shares in previous Russell horses. Keith Garwood, a widower in his 60s took a share, so too 50-year-old Gary Scott with the final owner to sign up, student Cameron Sword, who was bitten by the racing bug during Covid.
Russell has experience of Grand National glory, having guided One for Arthur to success in 2017.
Of her chances of a second success, she said: “The prep is going really well. Since Cheltenham [last month], it was a matter of letting him recover. It’s been sort of winding him up again to Aintree.”
Helping Russell is her partner and the eight-time champion jockey Peter Scudamore, who rides out Corach each morning. “The horse and I have a connection,” said Scudamore. “He is a bit of a character and we’ve clicked.”
The owners have, too, over their passion for the horse. For Hillis, the National will be particularly poignant. Should he win, victory would be dedicated to his wife Bridget, who died aged 59 from leukaemia last July.
“She loved going to Liverpool and this year she’d have had a new hat and a horse,” he said.
The horse boasts earnings of £200,000, which the owners all plan to plough back into racing, according to Sword, now 21 and into the third year of a business degree.
After completing his studies, he plans to set up a business selling racehorses in micro shares.
Among the Ramblers, there is talk of clubbing together to buy another horse. For now, they are allowing themselves to think big. As Sword put it: “We were chatting to Lucinda what it would be like to win. I can’t imagine it. We’ve all got that dream and it’s alive.”
The Aintree Randox Grand National is live on ITV tomorrow. To find out more visit greatbritishracing.com
