History does not favour the chances of Snow Leopardess in tomorrow’s Grand National. No mare has won the race since Nickel Coin in 1951 and only three greys have been victorious, most recently Neptune Collonges.
And yet the 10-year-old would be the sort of fairytale winner that could be part of a film script, not just Aintree folklore. So much so, in fact, that trainer Charlie Longsdon’s 12-year-old son has already announced to the family he plans to play himself when the horse’s story is retold on the silver screen.
That Snow Leopardess remains a racehorse is unlikely, that she is among the potential challengers over the Aintree fences virtually impossible.
The horse was bred by Marietta Fox-Pitt, the mother of the three-time Olympic three-day eventing medallist William, who would go on to become the singer Madonna’s riding instructor.
Mrs Fox-Pitt was there at the birth and explained to the family that the mare’s arrival was the first time she had smiled since her husband Oliver had died in 2012. There have been plenty of smiles since.
Snow Leopardess’ career is defined in two parts. In act one, she was that rarity of a horse to win races in England, Ireland and France, which had been a goal of Fox-Pitt, who then took a somewhat maverick decision.
Longsdon explains: “She has some mad ideas – weird and wonderful ideas, that’s the way she rolls and we love her for it. And the thing is they come off, which is fantastic.”
Her decision was to breed with the then six-year-old horse. The general perception in horse racing today is that, once a horse becomes a brood mare, it stays that way, so her trainer bid farewell and toasted the end of an impressive career. The owner, however, had other plans.
“She’s quite a character and knows what she wants, and her view was why can’t she come back after a foal,” he said. “She mentioned Jessica Ennis coming back as Olympic champion and she was dead right. Why can’t she? It’s just that it’s not done in the horse world as such these days. I think I said ‘yeah, yeah, whatever’ and assumed she’d change her mind.”
But a few weeks after the foal was born, Fox-Pitt sent pictures of her riding Snow Leopardess with the foal alongside and she was back in training at Longsdon’s Hull Farm by the August.
Having had a nasty leg injury in the past, from which she recovered, he was slow in getting her back – what he calls “training with the handbrake on” which “took a bit of time but we got there”.
A win in a big race at Haydock Park, the runners-up spot at Wetherby and a fourth at Cheltenham followed, the horse very much improved in the second part of her career. And then came the win over the Aintree fences last December which gave owner and trainer alike the belief a Grand National victory could be possible.
In between that time, Fox-Pitt has taken two embryos off Snow Leopardess and has had two eggs fertilised by Chacco-Blue, who sired Ben Maher’s gold-medal winning showjumping horse at the Tokyo Olympics, for a surrogate mother. As Longsdon puts it, in half a dozen years’ time there could be Leopardess champions in the showjumping world.
Snow Leopardess is the clear standout from his relatively small yard which currently has 55 horses, who have between them won 45 races already this season.
He has had runners in the National in the past but none better priced than 50-1 and with just one finisher to date. With a contender, he admits the past week has been a slightly fretful one, a combination of nerves, excitement, trepidation and some sleepless nights on account of having a shot at winning the world’s biggest horse race.
“It’s hugely exciting as she clearly loves the fences and she has a hell of a story behind her,” he said. “Only two greys have won in the last 60 or 70 years, no mare since 1951, no one really knows the back story of her mother. There’s all these weird and wonderful things. And it’s still a long shot as there’s 39 other horses and you need that element of luck. Plus, we’re taking on the Mullins, Elliotts, Nicholls and Hendersons of this world with our little homebred.
“We’ll need an element of luck but it will be nothing if not exciting. All the corny things come to mind. Winning would be a dream come true. It’s very surreal that we have a chance.”
