The story of L’Escargot is best told from the perspective of the one event that earned him fame – The 1975 Aintree Grand National. The race earned the 1964 Irish born race horse plaudits for both for whom he beat to win this prestigious race, and the style in which he did it. L’Escargot began the race as an underdog, legend of the sport Red Rum was seeking to make it a hat-trick of Grand National wins in a row, was 7/2 favourite to win the race, and had virtually the entire nation cheering him on. With that in mind, L’escargot went on to carve out his own place in history with a win of 15 lengths over Red Rum. His starting price was 13/2 and he had Tommy Carberry on board.
Remarkable career
L’Escargot’s story is remarkable for a number of other reasons, not least that his name, quite ironically, means ‘The Snail’ in French. His owner Raymond R. Guest had settled on the name asimply because it had a similar sound to his preferred Let’s Go,’ which was a name that had already been taken.
Ridden by Tom Carberry, the Dan Moore trained horse won the Cheltenham Gold Cup two times in succession in 1970 and 1971 before raising expectations yet further by setting sights on the Grand National. This horse and jockey combo was effectively a long term formula for success starting off in 1968, when he won two of the five races he took part in. Then a spell in the United States.
Story of persistence
After returning to the Europe in 1970, the horses career was very much England and Ireland centred. After the aforementioned Cheltenham successes, the Grand National was very much the goal. This proved to be far from a formality in that it took multiple attempts to get it right. First off in the 1972 Grand National, L’Escargot fell at the third fence. In the following year, his fortunes improved and he came third. Buoyed by this success, his team entered him again the following year where to he placed second in the 1974 Grand National . The story of has persistence pays finally came in 1975, when ‘The Snail’ became only the second horse to win both the Gold Cup and The Grand National, after Golden Miller had won the double in 1934.
L’Escargot lived out the remainder of his life being doted on by the wife of his trainer. After such success, he’d certainly earned a taste of the easy life.
