The Jump That Won A Grand National

Only five years ago Jay Trump, the American-bred, -owned and-ridden winner of the 117th and perhaps last Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree, was a rogue, trained as a flat racer rather than a jumper, and considered so dangerous that jockeys were reluctant to accept him as a mount. He never, in fact, amounted to anything as a flat racer, even in such undistinguished company as might be found at Charles Town and Shenandoah Downs, where he was unable to break his maiden. He first showed ability to jump on the day he turned bad actor. An exercise rider, trying to correct a tendency of the horse to drift out, whipped him on the right side of the head and accidentally struck his eye. Jay Trump thereupon jumped over the inside rail, cutting his right foreleg so severely that 29 stitches were needed to close the wound. His owner, Jay Sensenich, even considered destroying him.

For a long time thereafter, Jay Trump was a common danger. Until, that is, Crompton (Tommy) Smith, an amateur jockey from an old Middleburg, Va. foxhunting and steeplechasing family, came along. He had been commissioned to spend a few dollars to buy a likely timber horse for his godmother, Mrs. Mary C. Stephenson of Cincinnati, and he purchased Jay Trump from the discouraged Sensenich for $2,000. There was little to recommend Jay Trump except that the price was right.

Today, aside from the fact that he does not like crowds of horses near him and in the Grand National refused to move up to the front before the start because there were 46 other horses bothering his desire for freedom of movement, Jay Trump is as amenable a fellow as one could hope to meet—well-mannered, obedient and eager to oblige. Smith had gentled him and won his confidence with a long course of fox hunting—so successfully that, together, they won two Maryland Hunt Cups. In 1963 they set the record for the race.

In winning the Grand National, at odds ranging from 12 to 1 to 17 to 1—depending on whether and when one bet with bookmakers or the tote—Jay Trump enriched hundreds of Americans who had journeyed from the U.S. to Aintree in full confidence that he would win. Marylanders among them were especially optimistic, so much so that some required police escorts to get them safely away from the track with their winnings. Bookmakers were badly scorched. Turf Accountant William Hill alone reported a record Grand National payout of $1,384,000 on the big bay gelding, highest for the race in his firm's history. And the value of the race to Mrs. Stephenson was $61,714. Next move for Jay Trump is to the Grand Steeplechase de Paris at Auteuil in June.

For all its fame and history, the Grand National is such a difficult race that only a few of the very top steeplechasers are entered. In this year's running, for instance, the best steeplechaser in Britain and, for that matter, the whole world, an Irish-bred horse named Arkle, was not entered. Owned by Anne, Duchess of Westminster, and trained in Ireland by Tom Dreaper, Arkle has won 19 of his 23 races since he started running under National Hunt Rules in the 1961-62 season. Another celebrated British jumper, Mill House, who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1963 and has finished second to Arkle twice in that event, was entered but was weighted so heavily in the handicapping that he was withdrawn.

Even so, it is a magnificent challenge to horse and rider, the greatest that exists on the turf. Of Saturday's 47 starters only 14 finished the course. Most of the race was the usual scramble, and at times it was a shambles, with horses falling and running wild and thrown riders cringing away from hooves that thundered all about them. Jay Trump himself stepped on a fallen rider, who was lucky enough to escape with cracked ribs. Five jockeys were hospitalized, but with relatively minor injuries.

The 27-year-old Tommy Smith is a grandson of Harry Worcester Smith, a famed Virginia sportsman who once took his entire household—all his servants, stable staff, carriages and a pack of hounds—to Ireland for a season of fox hunting. Some of that love of the chase gleams in young Smith's eyes. Scars from two automobile accidents are livid on his forehead, and the marks of hunting spills are on his body, but Jay Trump never has fallen with him.

Two days before the Grand National, Smith walked the course with Mrs. Stephenson and Trainer Fred Winter, who rode in more than 4,000 races over a period of 17 years. Fourteen of those races were Grand Nationals, of which he won two.

Examining the turf, Winter expressed concern that the footing was "a bit deep." Jay Trump is accustomed to firm sod, as in his native America. (It rained intermittently right up to the day of the race, when the course was graced with a strong, drying wind. That was Jay Trump's first piece of good luck.) After examining such dangerous jumps as Becher's Brook and The Chair, the party came finally to the last fence. Smith climbed onto its top and tested it for hardness. He spread-eagled himself over it and said, "It feels a little softer than the others." That was perhaps the key discovery of the day. It turned out to be another piece of luck for Jay Trump.

The Hunt Cup fences are of hard, unyielding timber. The Grand National jumps are of hard, unyielding thorn, covered with deceptively soft-looking spruce, fir or gorse, and in some cases have a foundation of timber. However they may look, no horse can expect to jump low and brush his way through the top cover. And so Jay Trump's experience in Maryland served him well. He learned there to respect fences and clear them cleanly. But when Smith noted the relative softness of the last jump, he made a decision that won him the race.