The Rip Has Been Nursed Into Shape

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30710, 27 March 1965, Page 6

The Rip Has Been Nursed Into Shape

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, March 26.

If a 10-year-old bay gelding named The Rip comes home at the head end of the parade in Saturday’s Grand National Steeplechase, a roar will go up from the rickety stands.

For The Rip is owned by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who almost won the National some years ago with Devon Loch.

When she first saw The Rip,

he was a sorry-looking yearling with a club foot, standing listlessly in a tiny paddock behind a pub called the Red Cat, in Norfolk. Acting on a friend's tip, she drove from Sandringham, looked at the gangling thoroughbred and decided that she would buy him. “He was an ungainlylooking horse at that time, but there was something about him that appealed to the Queen Mother,” says her private secretary, Sir Martin Gilliat, who himself has a “great passion” for horses. SON OF FAVOURITE

There was a special reason for the Queen Mother’s decision. Apart from the horse’s make and shape, which impressed her knowing eye, he was a son of Manicou, once one of the Queen Mother’s favourites. His dam was Easy Virtue. The Queen Mother chose the name of The Rip. The publican who owned the yearling, J. A. Irwin, accepted the price offered and the deal was toasted in a glass of wine by Sir Martin Gilliat and the former Royal racing manager, Charles Moore, who had accompanied the Queen Mother to the pub. That was in 1956. A few months later an operation was performed on the malformation on one of the horse’s legs, and he began to thrive. But the ailments did not end. Later he had breathing difficulty, and submitted to an operation known as hobdaying. Still later he had tendon trouble, cured by firing. SHOWING CLASS

In between infirmities, The Rip was showing class and

courage as a jumper. After a spell in Ireland, he ran his first race on November 20, 1959. Nearly a year later, on October 17, 1960, he won his first race, a small hurdles event at Hurst Park in London.

Since then he has won 11 other races. His big moment comes on Saturday in what may be the last running of the Grand National. In 1956 Devon Loch was over the last fence and well clear of the field when he seemed to stretch as if to take an invisible jump, sprawled on the ground and lost the race.