The Grand National has produced plenty of dramatic finishes, but few have looked quite like the closing stages of the 1971 race.
Five horses approached and jumped the final fence with very little between them. Even on the long run towards the Elbow it was difficult to be certain which one would come out on top.
Eventually it was Specify, a 28/1 chance ridden by John Cook, who got his head in front when it mattered and beat Black Secret by just a neck.
It was a famous victory for trainer John Sutcliffe and owner Fred Pontin, the businessman behind the Pontins holiday camps, and more than half a century later, Specify’s National remains remembered as much for the finish as the winner himself.
Specify Had Taken Time to Come Good
Specify was a bay gelding foaled in 1962, by Specific out of Ora Lamae, and bred in Norwich by Alan Parker.
He was initially bought for just £300 by Arthur Freeman, who already knew exactly what it took to win at Aintree.
Freeman had ridden Mr What to victory in the 1958 Grand National, beating Tiberetta by 30 lengths. Specify therefore found himself associated with a National winner very early in his life.
There was little early sign that Freeman had bought another future Aintree hero. His first season was disappointing, and he subsequently passed through several owners, but things began to improve as he matured, with three successive victories at the age of four.
His progress was then interrupted by a nasty fall when he was six, which left him with a head injury.
Specify recovered, however, and eventually developed into a very useful chaser. He won the Plate Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 1969, giving him a major success two years before his Grand National victory.
Fred Pontin Buys a Grand National Horse
After Specify won a chase at Windsor, holiday camp businessman Fred Pontin paid a reported £12,000 for him in 1970.
Pontin was already a keen racehorse owner and had a habit of giving some of his horses names connected with his business. His horses included Go Pontin, Pontingo and Go Pontinental. There was apparently even an attempt to register Specify as “Specify Pontin”, although the name was rejected.
Pontin bought Specify with Aintree very much in mind, and his first attempt came in the 1970 Grand National, where Specify was ridden by John Cook. He was still involved when he was brought down at the 22nd fence, the second Becher’s Brook.
He then returned the following year, now trained by John Sutcliffe at Ermyn Lodge in Epsom.
John Sutcliffe and John Cook Were Already Having a Big Year
The team arrived at Aintree in very good form, and only a couple of months earlier, Sutcliffe and jockey John Cook had combined to win the Schweppes Gold Trophy at Newbury with the 33/1 outsider Cala Mesquida.
That race is now known as the Betfair Hurdle and was one of the biggest handicap hurdles of the season even then. So while Specify himself was hardly one of the obvious horses in the 1971 Grand National, his jockey and trainer were certainly enjoying a successful spell, and Specify was subsequently sent off at 28/1.
Defending champion Gay Trip was much more popular with punters, largely due to the exceptional performance when winning the 1970 National by 20 lengths. He started the following year’s race as the 8/1 favourite.
His attempt to win back-to-back Nationals lasted only a few seconds before he fell at the very first fence.
Gay Buccaneer Was Extremely Unlucky
With the favourite gone, the race began to open up and one horse who looked particularly dangerous was Gay Buccaneer.
He had established a clear lead by the Canal Turn on the first circuit and appeared to be travelling strongly. Then a loose horse interfered with him, costing Gay Buccaneer a huge amount of ground and taking him from the front of the field towards the back.
Remarkably, he recovered sufficiently to finish tenth. Specify, meanwhile, was having a much quieter race.
Cook kept him within striking distance without becoming involved with the early leaders. As the runners began to tire and the field became thinner, Specify gradually moved closer, and by the final few fences, he was right in contention.
Five Horses Jump the Last Together
The last fence produced one of the great sights in Grand National history.
Specify, Black Secret, Astbury, Bowgeeno and Sandy Sprite were separated by very little as they jumped it.
There was no horse several lengths clear and no obvious winner. Specify was actually towards the back of the group immediately after the fence, leaving Cook with work to do on the long run to the finish.
Black Secret began to emerge as the biggest threat. Ridden by Jim Dreaper for his father Tom Dreaper, the trainer best known for Arkle, Black Secret was travelling strongly and looked capable of taking the race.
Sandy Sprite was also still involved, while Astbury and Bowgeeno were refusing to go away, but Specify began to find a little more.
Specify Gets There by a Neck
Cook produced Specify late and the pair gradually closed on Black Secret. By the final 50 yards it had turned into a straight battle between the two horses.
Specify edged ahead just before the line and held on by a neck.
Black Secret finished second, with Astbury third, Bowgeeno fourth and Sandy Sprite fifth. The betting tells you just how unexpected the entire result was: the first five returned at 28/1, 20/1, 33/1, 66/1 and 33/1.
Few Grand Nationals have produced such a tightly packed finish, and for John Cook, it was the greatest win of his career.
Sadly, his time in the saddle was already running short.
John Cook’s Career Was Cut Short
Cook had been a very good National Hunt jockey long before Specify.
Among his best horses was Spanish Steps, aboard whom he won several huge races, including the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury.
But only seven months after his Grand National victory, Cook suffered another serious injury. In November 1971 he broke his right leg while riding Noble Birth.
It was the second time he had broken the same leg, and after medical advice he eventually retired from race riding in December 1972.
Cook finished his career with 297 winners before moving with his family to Western Australia, where he worked as an assistant trainer. He died in 1999 at the age of 62.
Specify was Cook’s only Grand National winner.
Specify Returned to Defend His Crown
Specify came back to Aintree in 1972, although Cook was no longer able to ride him, so Barry Brogan took over in the saddle.
The defending champion again ran well and remained involved deep into the race, but could not repeat his victory.
Well To Do won from former champion Gay Trip, while Black Secret finished in a dead-heat for third with General Symons.
Specify came home sixth, one of only nine horses to complete the course, in what was to be his final Grand National appearance.
Specify retired the following year and eventually returned to Fred Pontin’s Farringford estate on the Isle of Wight.
He died during the 1980s and was buried in the grounds, where a plaque still marks his resting place.
Specify Helped Inspire Another Famous Grand National Owner
There is one other interesting part of Specify’s story that only became clear many years later.
When Fred Pontin won the 1971 National, one of the people working for him was Trevor Hemmings. Hemmings later recalled that he had been working on the weekend of the National while Pontin headed off to Aintree.
When Pontin returned having won the race, it sparked Hemmings’ own interest in racehorse ownership.
That influence turned out to be rather important because Hemmings became one of the most successful Grand National owners of the modern period, winning the race three times with Hedgehunter in 2005, Ballabriggs in 2011 and Many Clouds in 2015.
So Specify’s 1971 win did more than give Fred Pontin his biggest day as a racehorse owner; it indirectly helped create another of Aintree’s great ownership stories.
More than 50 years later, however, Specify is still best remembered for those extraordinary final seconds.
Five horses went over the last almost together, with Black Secret looking as though he might have done enough, and John Cook asking Specify for one final effort.
And a 28/1 outsider getting his head in front just in time.
For a horse who had once been bought for only £300, it was quite a way to write his name into Grand National history.
BETFRED
