In the spring of 1869, Queen Victoria was approaching the halfway mark of what would eventually be a 64-year reign, Sir Henry Morton Stanley was preparing to head for Africa to seek out Dr Livingstone, and a horse called Huntsman won the third running of the Scottish Grand National at Bogside, a now-defunct racecourse on the banks of the River Irvine in Ayrshire. More than a century-and-a-half later, Huntsman is still the last horse trained in Ireland to win Scotland’s biggest race of the year.
The Scottish National is, admittedly, just one among a whole host of targets for Irish trainers at this time of year, at Aintree, the Irish National meeting at Fairyhouse and then Punchestown at the end of the month. But it is still something of a surprise that it has remained such an immovable object in the face of growing Irish supremacy in jumps racing in recent decades.
