DAVY RUSSELL ON TIGER ROLL: “The horse of my lifetime”

‘Tiger Roll is the horse of my lifetime, that’s for sure’

Star Sports ambassador Davy Russell pays tribute to dual Grand National hero Tiger Roll who was retired today after his gallant close-up second in the Cross Country Chase at the Cheltenham Festival …

So that’s it. The end of a truly remarkable racing career for an extraordinary horse.

Tiger is different to any other horse

His ability was endless.

I’m full convinced he could have done anything.

I did mention to Gordon [Elliott] a few years back that he should enter him in a Grand Steeplechase de Paris.

I thought it was a race he was well capable of winning – that’s how good I thought he was.

He’s actually quite a grumpy horse in his stable at home, but when you produce a Polo or a camera he lights up and that was the same in his races.

He loved getting on the lorry, going places and schooling.

What Gordon [Elliott] tended to do was school him and gallop him at the same time, so he got him fitter without the graft of the gallops at home.

That first Grand National success

It had been three or four years since I had actually sat on him.

I rode him in the Triumph Hurdle and he was very good that day and things happened in the meantime and then all of a sudden, I was back riding him in the Grand National.

He used to get quite low at his fences, and I was never expecting to win a Grand National on him, but there was just something about him when I got on him in the parade ring – he just seemed different.

I cantered him to the start, went across the Melling Road, showed him the first fence and he knew there was a task ahead.

He was just more alive underneath me. He had a real spark.

Tiger had cheekpieces on the first year and he was so just so quick from taking off to landing at his obstacles.

The more horses around him, the better he seemed to go.

I never dreamed of taking it up before the last, but with Tiger that year he just travelled so well down to the last.

He absolutely winged it and I was gone.

Coming down to the Elbow it was all over, everything was going grand, then all of a sudden he started to prick his ears at the water jump because we were going around it.

He was keeping loads to himself and there is only so much you can do in those situations.

Another slap wouldn’t have got him to concentrate and thankfully we passed it and he ran on again to the line.

David [Mullins] passed me as if I was stood still and I didn’t know where the line was.

You just wait and hope they call your number because, if they don’t, you’ve just thrown away immortality.

When they called it, it was just unbelievable!

That second National success

The following year it was like a cult following. People were dressing up as tigers and going to the races.

People at home, the man on the street, everyone knew who Tiger Roll was. He knew it too.

The second year was the same as the first – I hadn’t seen him at all really.

I might have popped him once before the race, but that was it.

Getting to Aintree I was just thinking ‘He can’t win, it’s just not done. You’d need a spectacular horse to do it.’

That year he was wearing blinkers and the crowd so nearly got to him.

He was really wound up going to the start and I was thinking to myself ‘You can’t win a Grand National being wound up before the race.’

The first couple of fences he wasn’t travelling quite as I would have liked, and I just gave him a little tap down the shoulder and all of a sudden he was locked on.

I was delaying it as much as I could. I was aware of Ruby [Walsh] being there and maybe he was letting me go a little bit because I was getting there too soon, but Paddy [Kennedy] made an error at the last and I landed in front.

I had more confidence the second year because I did know that if I gave him a couple of cracks when we got to the Elbow, with the blinkers on, he wouldn’t gawk at the water.

He was really good – nearly better the second year than he was the first year.

That’s brilliant because sometimes horses, when they go over those fences, don’t have the same appetite to go back over them again, but he did.

Tiger Roll will always have a place in my heart

You grow up from a young age and the Grand National is the one race that anybody who steps into a pair of boots wants to win.

Of course, I’ve dreamt about Grand Nationals. I’ve won countless numbers of them in my dreams.

I’ve won on Party Politics, I’ve won on Seagram, I’ve won on Bindaree, I’ve won on them all around the garden at home.

For him to win two and for me to ride him in both makes him very, very special.

You can’t say you’ll never see the likes of him again, but you’ll never see the likes of him again.

He’s the horse of my lifetime, that’s for sure.

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