Gay Trip – 1970 Grand National Winner

Owned by Mr. A. Chambers, Gay trip was trained by Fred Rimmell. Rimmell had been an extremely successful jockey and had won the National Hunt Champion Jockey title four times before two falls, resulting in a broken neck, cut short his riding career.

One of the most successful trainers in Grand National history he is the only one to have had four wins with four different horses. One of only two greys to ever win the race, Nicolaus Silver, was trained by him, as were National Winners E.S.B., Rag Trade and of course Gay Trip.

Pat Taaffe was the jockey chosen to ride Gay Trip for the race, he had already enjoyed great success with the legendary Arkle winning three Gold Cups and a fourth on another horse, Fort Leney and was no stranger to The National having won in 1955 on Quare Times.

On race day, Gay Trip was carrying the top weight of 11st 5lbs, and having never won beyond two and a half miles his chances were not that good. Taaffe did a great job steering him to a 20 length victory at odds of 15/1 and in doing so provided the perfect end to his own racing career.

After retiring as a jockey Pat Taaffe took up training, sadly a year after having a heart transplant he died in 1992 in his native Ireland, his son Tom carried on the family tradition first as a jockey and later as a trainer.