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'I was completely wrong - winning the Grand National really did change my life'
Arthur's comeback has Russell hoping for a second piece of jumping history
It may seem a long time ago in the fast-turning cycle of modern racing, but One For Arthur's 2017 Grand National win is still imprinted on the consciousness of all those at Arlary Stables. Although Tiger Roll has long since assumed the mantle of Aintree's 'people's champion', nobody at the burgeoning Perthshire yard will ever forget the day their very own hero landed the world's biggest horse race, least of all trainer Lucinda Russell, who now freely admits what she once doubted: that winning the National is a life-changing experience.
Perhaps it was the fact that she had been asked to speculate on the effectiveness of the experience every time she had a runner in the previous 18 years or so, but she had almost reduced the status of the race to normality, believing the thrill and the glory to be the extent of its impact. Now she knows differently.
"I'm really stubborn," says Lucinda Russell OBE, partner of assistant trainer Peter Scudamore MBE and now a National treasure in her own right. "I got used to the press asking what it would mean to me to win it, would it change my life, and I always said no, it would be great to win it for the honour of it, but that was as far as it went.
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