'Whatever happens after this is only a bonus' - Corach Rambler's Aintree and Cheltenham exploits a tonic for breeder

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Aisling Crowe is in the plate this week while Martin Stevens is away, and here speaks to Corach Rambler's breeder Paul Hillis about the Grand National hero's poignant victory for his family.

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Heart N Hope is the perfect description for the story of National treasure Corach Rambler and his breeder Paul Hillis, and it just so happens to be the name given to the nine-year-old's dam.

Hillis, inspired by jockey and now trainer Mark Scallan, believed so resolutely in the son of Jeremy and the mare he purchased because she was related to his favourite horse, that he bought back into Corach Rambler after he was sold to Lucinda Russell and Peter Scudamore.

Two Cheltenham Festival successes and a Grand National triumph later, the story is remarkable for so many reasons, not least the perseverance and faith that Hillis showed in his homebred, when virtually everyone else had dismissed him and his unconventional intelligence.

At Aintree, as one of the seven Ramblers, a syndicate Russell assembled after Hillis contacted her, that heart and hope he had in Corach Rambler made for an emotional triumph and a day that was beyond what he had imagined for his homebred hero.

Hillis says: "Whatever happens after this is only a bonus - two Cheltenham wins and the Grand National, it's unreal. I never thought we'd get near Cheltenham, let alone Aintree. The one thing I did know is that he would improve, and he has.”

Corach Rambler: Grand National hero and dual Cheltenham Festival winnerCredit: GROSSICK RACING 07710461723

It was a bitterly poignant victory for Hillis, who was accompanied to Aintree by his son, daughters and a grandson, as his wife Bridget died last July. In his own way, Corach Rambler has provided Hillis and his family with rays of light amid the darkness of their grief.

Hillis says: "The horse winning helped us a lot as a family, not to distract from it but to give us a lift when we are really down. Bridget was part of it. The last race meeting we were at together was Aintree in 2019,

"I'm the only one in the family who is interested in racing, my son and daughters wouldn't be mad into racing but they came over for the race and it was lovely for us all to be there. It was the first time in a long time that we’d got away together."

The family's stay in Liverpool turned into a trip to Scotland, with an invitation extended by Russell and Scudamore to the celebrations at their yard and then an audience with royalty.

"Lucinda invited us to Kelso so on we went and who showed up, only Princess Anne, so I got to have a little chat with her," Hillis recounts.

Corach Rambler and the team after his Grand National victoryCredit: GROSSICK RACING 07710461723

The dream may have been designed in Kinross but it was born in south Wexford, where Hillis, originally from Birmingham, lives and where Corach Rambler, named by Hillis for the local football team he played on the right wing for back in the day, spent his formative years.

Aintree connections abound in the story, with that favourite horse of Hillis, the dual Melling Chase winner Native Upmanship. Arthur Moore's seven-time Grade 1 winner, who was also runner-up twice in the Champion Chase, is a half-brother to River Thyne, the unraced dam of Heart N Hope.

The chestnut was a daughter of Fourstars Allstar, who became the first American-trained horse to win a European Classic when successful in the Irish 2,000 Guineas of 1991 for Leo O'Brien.

When she was offered at Goffs in June 2003 by Derrygrath Stud, her half-brother A Glass In Thyne was still only a five-year-old and almost three years away from winning the Great Yorkshire Chase. 

Hillis says: "I wanted to get a horse related to Native Upmanship, this filly came up at the sales and I decided to buy her, and I paid €10,500 for her. She was a chestnut filly but she didn't stand out.”

Corach Rambler's dam, Heart N Hope, is from the family of Native Upmanship (navy silks)Credit: Caroline Norris

Heart N Hope was put into training locally with John White in Bannow, another link to Aintree as White rode Esha Ness to 'win' the infamous 1993 Grand National.

Hillis had been involved in owning horses since 1994 and that perseverance, or what he describes as stubbornness, kept him going with Heart N Hope's breeding career as she turned out to be a tricky broodmare with her offspring having their share of misfortune.

He says: "We raced her about four times but she was very, very slow so we retired her quite quickly. I couldn't get her in foal for a few years but she got in foal eventually. That horse was injured on the gallops, he didn't have any luck. We had two more after that but they didn't make the grade.”

The situation seemed more positive with the emergence of Morning Symphony, her 2009 gelding by Vinnie Roe. He was trained for Hillis by his friend Ronnie O'Leary, who has trained a handful of winners for him. Morning Symphony was not one of them but he was sold after two runs to Warren Greatrex and made a promising debut for him when second in a maiden hurdle. However, on his next run he suffered a career-ending injury.

Corach Rambler was a yearling by then.

"I gave a 50 per cent share in him to friends of mine, Paddy and John Joe Sinnott, to raise him from a foal,” says Hillis. “He was born on their property as I didn't have stables at the time.

"We went point-to-pointing as a four-year-old but he didn't do anything for us, he was pulled up twice as a five-year-old, then he got a cut so we had to let him off for a good few months. We brought him back and he finished second and then he won at Monksgrange."

Corach Rambler sold for just £17,000 at the Goffs UK's November Point-to-Point Sale, the same event where Jonbon (pictured) made £570,000 to JP McManusCredit: Goffs UK

That victory prompted John Walsh to suggest selling Corach Rambler, but Hillis wasn't about to give up on the horse.

He says: "The trainer advised us to sell him as he didn't think he'd go on to do anything, but I wasn't having it. Mark Scallan rode him as a four-year-old and he said he was a very nice horse, and Mark is a good judge."

Hillis contacted O'Leary to see if he could find three other people to form a syndicate with him to buy the Sinnotts out and keep Corach Rambler, but there was nobody able to discern in the horse what Scallan and Hillis in their own ways had seen. 

The timing didn't help as it was the autumn of 2020 and so it was that Corach Rambler was sold for just £17,000 at Goffs UK's November Point-to-Point Sale, held at Yorton Farm.

At that same sale Russell bought Ahoy Senor for £50,000 and, in a different stratosphere, Jonbon made £570,000 to JP McManus. Hillis was straight on the phone to Russell, asking to buy a share in the horse if he was syndicated.

"You stick with it and if you stay in long enough something will come good out of it - I call it stubbornness," he laughs.

He is sticking with it still, full of heart and hope.

Hillis has a four-year-old brother of Corach Rambler by Snow Sky in training with Scallan, who will be given all the time he needs. Although Heart N Hope is no longer around, he does have her final foal, Full Of Grace, a daughter of Hillstar who stands in Wexford at the Hickey family's Garryrichard Stud, where Jeremy also stood. She was recently covered for the first time by Harzand.

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Did you miss Good Morning Bloodstock Live?

Martin Stevens talked to Watership Down Stud's Simon Marsh about Too Darn Hot’s first two-year-olds, the operation’s history and mating plans for its outstanding broodmares in Good Morning Bloodstock Live. You can find it on Instagram @rpbloodstock or YouTube @racingpostbloodstock4646.

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