When Corbiere won the 1983 Grand National, the 23-year-old Bryan Burrough, fresh out of university but already embarked on a career in the City, became the youngest winning owner in the history of the world’s greatest race.
Now, 42 years later, he is back for another bite of the cherry with Beauport, a horse bought to be a two-miler, and he is asking himself whether, as a small owner with never more than legs in a couple of horses and one outright, he will feel guilty if lightning were to strike twice.
It is the big owners, he reasons, like Gigginstown and JP McManus, who put millions into the sport, who deserve to win it multiple times.
On balance, however, he decides that any such feeling would be offset by the enjoyment derived from the overwhelming emotion of winning the world’s greatest race which would be experienced by his wife, Philippa, who was not on the scene for Corbiere but who is daily reminded of his achievements by photographs and the trophy of the Jenny Pitman-trained white-faced chestnut, jockey Sam Twiston-Davies and Fay Shilton, the horse’s groom.
There are several parallels between Beauport – pronounced the French way with a silent T – and Corbiere.
Both horses were bought as untried, unnamed store horses. Corbiere was named after a rocky point on Jersey where Burrough still has a family connection; Beauport is named after the neighbouring bay which was once given as a wedding present to his great grandmother.
Beauport is the first horse he has named after somewhere on the island since Corbiere. Beauport, his favourite beach, was always a back-up name for any horse which they could not suitably name in the traditional way; taking something from the sire and dam. But ‘by Califet out of Byerley Beauty’ had stumped them.
Both horses won ‘Nationals’ on their way to Aintree; Corbiere the Welsh, Beauport the Midlands.
“Corbiere was bought as a two-year-old,” remembers Burrough who is now a director at Newbury, a racecourse on the up again after a long spell in the doldrums. “A cousin offered my father a share in the horse. He said he had no interest at all but my mother said: ‘Hang on, it’s Bryan’s passion, why not get it for him?’ He paid the training fees but he ran in my name.”
Though Burrough had been at Radley College with Kim Bailey, Oliver and Simon Sherwood and Nigel Twiston-Davies, it was his maths teacher who had got him into racing. “He was deeply into mental arithmetic,” recalls Burrough. “Every Saturday he’d set a test with questions like: ‘How many furlongs are there in the St Leger?’ And betting fractions. Initially, I ran a book for about two days – until I was cleaned out by the insiders – but I went on to be head of the racing society at Radley.”
Corbiere ran in one of the first bumpers ever run in Britain in March 1979. “It had been snowing so he wasn’t fit. Paddy O’Brien rode and Jenny said: ‘Don’t touch him with the whip,’” says Burrough. “He led because he was very slow, they all passed him at the top of the straight, Paddy gave him one smack, he passed them all and won. Jenny was furious [that he hit him] though she gave me a wink when she was rollicking him!”
He won his novice hurdles but with no Albert Bartlett he ran in the Stayers’ Hurdle that season, finishing sixth, prompting Pitman to predict he would be a serious horse over fences. Meanwhile, at Durham University, Burrough was making his own prediction – confidently telling his fellow students Corbiere would win the 1983 National.
They were different days then. He ran 11 times during his novice-chase season, the biggest gap being the 28 days before he was second to Leslie Ann in the Sun Alliance.
Next season he had a fall, did a tendon and was off for a year, but returned to win the 1982 Welsh National. By this stage Burrough was working in the City with Nicky Henderson’s brother, Harry, at Cazenove, the company then run by Johnny Henderson, who was instrumental in saving the National which, in 1983, was run when negotiations between the Walton Group, who owned it, and the Jockey Club were at a delicate stage. It was the last of the ‘last’ Grand Nationals.
In the race Corbiere, under a brilliant ride from Ben de Haan, never left the inside and then withheld Greasepaint, who made bad mistakes at the 23rd and second last, flashing home by three-quarters of a length. He went on to finish third in the next two Nationals and, wherever he finished, Greasepaint, another National specialist, was never far away.
“Lusty Light fell at the first in the 1995 National and finished last the next year so I’ve tasted both Aintree extremes,” he adds.
Subsequently, until now at any rate, he has not been quite so lucky with his horses. “For 10 years I didn’t have a horse placed,” he recalls. “I always thought: ‘If I have legs in three, one’ll be injured, one’ll be slow and one OK.’ I was going to quit but Phillippa said: ‘Keep going, it’s your passion.’
“Then Rollalong, who was sixth to Kauto Star in the Gold Cup, and trained by Carl Llwellyn in Jenny’s old yard, came along. When Carl moved back to Nigel we went with him and we’re still there. We ring Carl – he describes himself as our racing manager – rather than Nigel. There are a lots of wise heads there and a lot of National threads with Carl and Nigel [two each] while Willie TD is the youngest person to win over the National fences – he was 16 years and four months when he won the Foxhunters on Baby Run.
“We were replacing a horse and Carl recommended bloodstock agent Gerry Hogan. I’m fascinated by the sales. Gerry narrowed it down to 40 from 450, I narrowed that down to 20 possibles and we bought the first one we could afford which was Beauport.
“We’d had long-distance chasers, Philippa said she’d love a horse that could run in the Champion Chase. So I’d done a lot of work on previous winners and saw that a French-bred with Sadler’s Wells in the pedigree was a pretty good formula for a good two-miler. But he’s no two-miler!
“Before he ran Carl said he was slow but that most horses go up the hill in Naunton three times but he was still pulling after three so it was clear he stayed and was willing. When he romped home in the EBF Novice Hurdle Final at Sandown at 50-1 we went from nice horse to something more interesting and on his first start over fences in the Colin Parker he beat Corach Rambler 25 lengths, but a series of physical niggles hampered his career until he won last year’s Midlands National.
“The Kiwi eventer Ginny Thomason did a lot of work on him last summer,” he explains. “We needed to get his rating up a bit to get in the National so we ran him in the Berkshire National at Ascot which he won by 30 lengths. It was a weak race but he went up 12lbs so we had the choice of top weight in Welsh National in bottomless ground or go back to graded long-distance hurdling and he ran blinders in the Long Walk and Rendlesham. I can’t understand his price. Being objective should be about 20-1 and he’s in great form.”
In his scrap book summarising his thoughts shortly after Corbiere’s victory, the 23-year-old Burrough wrote: “I now feel even at this early age I’ll die a happy man.” He could be doubly happy after Saturday.
