IF YOU WERE alive and vaguely cognizant of the world around you at the time, and if you had even a peripheral interest in horse racing back then, or even if you hadn’t, the chances are that you know where you were and what you were doing when Red Rum was winning his third Grand National in 1977.

In the sitting room, watching with your dad and your brother, that’s where.

There hasn’t been a horse like Red Rum since. There hasn’t been a horse who has grabbed the Grand National – the most famous horse race of them all, the one that extends beyond the confines of racing more than any other race in this part of the world – and made it his own.

There have been Grand National winners since Red Rum all right. Noteworthy Grand National winners, classy Grand National winners, unexpected Grand National winners, emotional Grand National winners, bizarre Grand National winners. But there hasn’t been a Grand National winner like Red Rum since. Not until now.

There is something about Tiger Roll. Even when he won his first Grand National last year, he seemed to garner more attention than your typical Grand National winner does. Late Late Show and everything.

It’s difficult to know why. Maybe it was down to his diminutive size, or maybe it was down to the fact that he was ridden by Davy Russell, or trained by Gordon Elliott, or owned by Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown House Stud. Or maybe it was down to the horse himself. The horse’s character. People felt like they knew Tiger Roll.

And when he lined up this year, you knew that he had a big chance. You knew that he was well handicapped, and that Gordon Elliott appeared to have him in even better form this year than last year. You knew that he deserved to be favourite. But still. The Grand National. Four and a quarter miles and 30 fences and 39 rivals.

Your heart is in your mouth every time they leave the ground in the Grand National, and they leave the ground often. Thirty fences, and Tiger Roll wouldn’t have been able to see over to the landing side of most of them. Maybe the water jump. Maybe Foinavon.

But Tiger Roll has Aintree figured out. He figured it out quite early last year, that the fences are not like normal fences, that he could jump through the spruce tops without losing momentum.

Davy Russell with his son Finn at the homecoming for Tiger Roll at Summerhill Village, Co Meath. Oisin Keniry / INPHO Oisin Keniry / INPHO / INPHO

It was interesting to listen to Davy Russell last year talking about that. About how clever Tiger Roll was, his mind clicking into gear, working out the obstacles. About how he danced around a fallen rival at Becher’s Brook last year, one step to his left around the faller I Just Know, another back to his right in order to maintain equilibrium. His rider said last year that, if he had just gone to his left without moving back to his right, he could have been left sitting on thin air.

It was interesting too to listen to Keith Donoghue talking about his Boyne Hurdle win, about how he clipped through the top of every hurdle. Low and efficient. That if you didn’t know Tiger Roll, you would have said that he would never jump a fence. But that’s Tiger Roll for you. He figures each obstacle out and jumps it as efficiently as the obstacle will allow. That’s one of the things that make him such a special racehorse.

It’s also probably why he has never fallen. He did unseat his rider once, at the second last fence in a novices’ chase at Galway when he was hampered, but he has never fallen. Thirty four races over obstacles, 14 over hurdles, four over Cheltenham’s idiosyncratic cross country track, two over Aintree’s fearsome Grand National fences. No falls.

He is a horse of a lifetime, a product of the care and attention he receives from Gordon Elliott and his team, a horse who responds in his races to the easy, fluid riding styles of his jockeys Davy Russell and Keith Donoghue.

In sport, in racing, you have to take time to celebrate the achievements. Too often we can get caught up in the what’s-next.

Thoughts of another Grand National can wait. They are exciting thoughts, a tilt at three in a row, unprecedented, even deeper roots into history’s fertile soil. For now, however, it is enough to celebrate what Tiger Roll has achieved.

Two Grand Nationals, the first horse to win back-to-back Nationals since Red Rum in 1973 and 1974. A bridge to history, from one who is universally recognised as a Grand National legend to another who will unquestionably be recognised as such in time. And racing on the front pages.

It’s some story. The horse who was bred for flat racing not for National Hunt racing, who was sold initially for £10,000, who was bought by Mags O’Toole for Gigginstown House with the Fred Winter Hurdle in mind, who won a Triumph Hurdle and a Munster National and a National Hunt Chase and two cross-country chases. Tiger Roll has raced at the Cheltenham Festival four times and he has won four times.

And two Grand Nationals.

In years to come, people will know where they were when Tiger Roll won his second Grand National.

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