DONCASTER
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 Freebooter Novices Chase.
It was named after the horse that won the Grand National in 1950. A vast crowd had congregated at Aintree, partly because the King and Queen would be there with their daughters Elizabeth and Margaret to see the royal runner, Monaveen.
Freebooter was the 10/1 joint favourite. Carrying 11 stone 11, he won by 15 lengths, marking him as a well above average winner of the race. The first three to finish were all trained in Yorkshire; how long will it be until that occurs again?
A year later he was 10/1 again, in spite of having the colossal burden of 12 stone 7 to carry. The race was an anticlimax for him and eleven others who came down at the first fence.
The following season he won four races in a row, as a result of which he again had 12-7 to carry in the National, and for the third year in a row was sent off at 10/1. He was still in contention when falling at the Canal Turn.
A fine stamp of a horse, Freebooter is one of a select band of five that won five races over the then-fearsome National fences – the other four being the Champion Chase in 1949, the Grand Sefton in 1950 and 1952 and the Becher Chase in 1953.
He was the epitome of the Aintree type; Cheltenham was not his cup of tea. He was trained by Bobby Renton near Ripon and owned by Mrs Lurlene Brotherton, an association that lasted 30 years – always hoping to find a future National winner. Mr Brotherton had died in 1949 after years of poor health. It was said he had given away over a million pounds to charities – when a million was serious money – but left a similar amount in his will, more than enough for his widow to continue buying horses.
Many years later a horse called Red Rum won eight races for the pair. Renton decided to retire – he was 83 at the time – Red Rum lost his form, and was sold. The rest is history.
Doncaster’s Freebooter Novices Chase lasted until 1994, and after that the more recent jumping star Burrough Hill Lad took over the title of the race.
AINTREE
Starting in 2023 the three-mile handicap chase at Aintree on Grand National Day was registered as the Freebooter.
Sources include:
Red Rum, by Ivor Herbert
A Race Apart, by Reg Green
Aintree, by John Pinfold – the Aintree Specialists chapter
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Grand+National+Meeting%3A+CREAM+OF+AINTREE%27S+CONQUERORS%3B+John+Randall%27s…-a084420588