In the late 1970s Doncaster had no jumps meetings between the end of the flat and January. A new fixture was created on Friday and Saturday 18-19 December 1980. Races that weren’t sponsored were named after horses with a Yorkshire connection. One of them was the Merryman Novices Chase, which was run at that pre-Christmas meeting until 1994.
In 1960 Merryman II became the last horse to win the Grand National before the fences were substantially modified for the first time in over seventy years and made less fearsome.
An Edinburgh lady, Miss Winifred Wallace, bought him when he was a five-year-old to ride in point-to-points. He was too good for that arena and she sent him to Neville Crump at Middleham, a master trainer of staying chasers. Merryman II continued his rise through the ranks and won the Aintree Foxhunters and a Scottish National.
Allotted ten stone twelve in the Grand National – the first to be televised – he was made the 13/2 favourite. Jockey Gerry Scott, who’d broken his collarbone twelve days before the race, somehow got passed by the doctors to ride, with Crump’s loyal support.
Merryman II was meant to be held up, but jumped so well that he took the lead cutting the corner at the Canal Turn. He coasted home by 15 lengths to give Crump his third National victory. The horse was the only clear favourite to win between 1927 and 1982.
In 1961 he was second, an equally meritorious performance in view of his burden of 11 stone 12. He was thirteenth the year after, cut little slack by the handicapper and carrying only four pounds less despite being eleven by this time. He never won at Doncaster but his exploits for a famed Yorkshire-based trainer made him more than eligible for having a race named after him.
Sources include:
Reg Green’s A Race Apart
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/When+asked+if+an+elderly+member+of+the+aristocracy+would+make+a…-a0320876178