Grand National the run-in and, two strides from the finishing post, he pipped the tiring Crisp to win by three-quarters of a length in what is arguably the most memorable Grand National of all time. Red Rum finished in 9 minutes 1.9 seconds, taking 18.3 seconds off the previous record for the National which had been set in 1935 by Reynoldstown. His record was to stand for the next seventeen years. Two years before the 1981 Grand National, jockey Bob Champion had been diagnosed with testicular cancer and given only months to live by doctors. But by 1981 he had recovered and
Dave Dick (jockey) Dave Dick (jockey) David Victor Dick (8 March 1924 – 15 February 2001) was a British jockey who competed at the Grand National from 1951–1965, winning the race in 1956 on E.S.B. He was the only jockey ever to win both races of the Lincoln-Grand National Spring Double and he holds the record, nine times, for the number of clear rounds on a notoriously difficult Aintree course. (The Aintree Clear Rounds Award, given for any jockey completing more than five clear rounds, was not instituted until 1986.) Dick was born in Ashampstead, Berkshire, the son of racehorse trainer David Purves