THIS year marks the 45th anniversary of one of the most exciting Grand Nationals in memory, when five horses still had a chance approaching the Elbow. Fortunes swung wildly like an acrobat at a rave in the closing stages, before John Cook guided Specify up the rail from off the pace to nab Black Secret inside the last 50 yards by a neck.

As ever, it was an unforgettable day for the victors, particularly as Cook would suffer a broken leg later that year that would bring the curtain down on his career.

It was to be the closest Tom Dreaper would get to adding the great steeplechase to a roll of honour that creaked under the weight of achievement. He hit the crossbar on a few occasions but despite winning the Irish version 10 times, including seven years in succession, it wasn’t to be at Aintree.

This was the great man’s last year as a licensed trainer. It would have been a wonderful way to sign off, particularly as the amateur in the saddle who had only left his teens the previous January was his son, producing a fantastic ride for one so inexperienced.

But it wasn’t to be.

There would be no second chance for Jim Dreaper as a jockey because despite his youth, he was handed the daunting task of keeping the famed Greenogue conveyor belt running. Think Joseph O’Brien succeeding Aidan at Ballydoyle.

So next time around, he was trainer as Black Secret looked to go one step further. Instead, despite another cracking run, the son of Black Tarquin and Sean Barker shared third with General Symons and Paddy Kiely.

Jim hasn’t had too many stabs at it since, but now, the dream has been renewed.

FOLLY OF REGRET

He is delayed because attempts to identify the cause of lameness in one of his charges took longer than expected. It was a mite vexing but as the man himself says, that’s racing. Horses get lame.

Looking back isn’t for the matter-of-fact Dreaper. He quotes his father a lot, having learned at the hands of the master. One of the lessons he took on board was the absolute folly, not to mention futility, of regret. That’s not to say he would not mind if events had unfolded differently.

Does he think about 1971 and what might have been, every time April comes around, you wonder?

“As little as I can,” says the fresh-faced 65-year-old. “It’s not good to see a grown man cry!”

That little bell goes off in the inquisitor’s head.

Brilliant! We are going to get a window to a tortured soul, an insight into the sense of loss that has persisted for half a century, of distress felt about being so near to achieving a lifetime’s ambition for himself and for his father. It’s all going to come pouring out.

So, you say, probing with a ham-fisted attempt at delicacy; it really hurts.

“Ah no, no, no.”

What?

“When it’s over, it’s over. It’s something I learned from my father and I didn’t learn enough unfortunately. He said ‘Don’t look back. When it’s over, it’s over and move on. Next race.’

“It was slightly disappointing, having got so close and it was the one chase worth winning he probably didn’t win.”

Slightly disappointing, the man said!

It means that he can look back on the race unemotionally. When there is only a neck separating you from glory, it is easy to find moments that might have altered the course of history.

“He made a mistake at the first fence after Becher’s second time round. I was lucky to stay on him. There was a big hole in it when we came around. I wasn’t aiming for it but he saw that it was smaller there and myself and another lad collided. I was hanging off him for a while and it cost us a length or so.

“But there are lots of things. Sandy Sprite, who was ridden by Ron Barry, was in front at the last fence. I was outside her and she broke down somewhere between the last fence and the line. She hung out a bit at the Elbow and the winner got up on the rail.

“Now there’s two aspects to that. She would possibly have beaten us if she hadn’t broken down but equally, Specify might have won anyway. Maybe he was just waiting.”

Fine margins.

Thankfully, Dreaper is not stone. Far from it. Tradition is important to him and so is family. He would dearly like to win the race.

“For lots of reasons. Really to put the Dreaper name on it because as we just said, it was the one chase that my father never won.”

Jim hasn’t had a lot of runners around Aintree. Our Greenwood won the Topham Chase in 1975, and Merry Gale garnered the Martell Cup 20 years later. His last contender for the marquee event was Hard Case, who fell in 1988.

Midlands National victor and Scottish National runner-up, Goonyella has a live chance of finally bagging the last big one. Dreaper is pleased with the preparation and is certainly happy to see the rain falling during the week.

“We didn’t do a whole lot with him early in the year, ran him in a few hurdle races. Then he ran in a chase after the weights had come out. He ran well, though well beaten by (Venitien De Mai) that was well handicapped on the day, but ran a good race.

“We would actually doubt Goony’s ability to win a three-mile handicap off his mark. He is handicapped now off his four-mile exploits in Uttoxeter last year and when second in the Scottish National. Strangely, even in a three-mile race they run him off the same rating, which is like Sole Power being rated the same at a mile and a furlong as he is over six. In fairness to the handicapper, he was nearly right at Naas because he beat all bar one.

“He’s not a quick horse. He’s a very honest horse and stays going well. Four miles, four miles and a quarter, that will suit.

“The problem with the National, there is so much money, it’s a high-class race nowadays and they go a three-mile gallop from the start and I just hope he doesn’t get too far back because it’s not the kind of place you need to be chasing the game early.

“Ideally you want a horse that’s kind of coasting a bit. If he’s under pressure a bit, I think he’ll stay going alright provided he jumps as we expect he will, but if he gets too far out of his ground that will make it a very difficult proposition.”

TESTING GROUND

It’s not that he doesn’t go on good ground, as his endeavours at Ayr illustrated.

“After a mile he had no chance, after two he looked as if he should pull up, after three he was just getting into it, after four he nearly beat them all. He’s just short of pace and when ground is good, everything happens quicker. Most horses will go on good ground. Some, like Goony, are more effective when it’s really testing because it takes the pace off some of the others.”

This is the classiest renewal in the history of the Grand National, with The Romford Pele just squeezing in at the bottom off 145.

“It takes a bit of the romance out of it certainly but at the end of the day, it’s a wonderful race. It’s not a Gold Cup, it’s a handicap. Just because you win it doesn’t mean you’re the best horse in it depending on the weight you carry. If Many Clouds wins it he’ll be justifiably considered the best horse because he has top weight.

“The Gold Cup is the ultimate test when they all run off level, except for the mares. You see the Grand National being called the world’s greatest race when there’s people in America and various places that never heard of it, but for jumping people, it is.”

Initially, it was business as usual. Jim’s hand was steady on the tiller and he was champion trainer in each of his first five seasons. He won the Irish Grand National with Colebridge in 1974 and guided Brown Lad to a history-making three successes in the Fairyhouse blue riband.

Indeed 1975 was a year for the ages. By the time the aforementioned Topham had been farmed, Dreaper had already trained the winners of three of Cheltenham’s four championship contests: the Gold Cup (Ten Up), the Champion Chase (Lough Inagh) and the Stayers’ (World) Hurdle (Brown Lad). Remarkably, a few weeks later, Brown Lad was claiming his first Irish National.

Without really being able to pinpoint when it happened or how, the successes became fewer and before we knew it, he was back in the mainstream, fighting for the bits and pieces.

“It was very frustrating, having been there in the great days with my father and we had five or six years after I took over. Then there were some lean times. You could call it a virus or whatever but we just had bad times. Then every couple of years a good horse would come along and we had a few good turns out of some horses but you’d always have the nagging doubt, that you’d wonder, ‘Maybe he could have been better if we had done something different’ but every trainer is like that.”

He has cut his cloth to measure and continues to prove the benefits of the Dreaper modus operandi. Success is relative and if it is Willie Mullins dominating now, the Dreapers will continue to specialise in the chasing type – not that they’d turn down a speedy hurdler if sent one. But chasers were what Tom focused on from the time he took out a licence in 1931 and it is the same now for Jim, his wife Paricia and their son Thomas.

Over the years, Carvill’s Hill, Kilkilowen, Merry Gale, Harcon and Notre Pere have offered reminders of the prowess, with the latter making his trainer the only Irish-based handler to win the Welsh National.

“I suppose I’m trying to replicate what my father did. Give them whatever time they need and hope that they come good because other men will win in two years what a good horse of ours might take five years to win.

“I’d always have the nagging feeling that if you went at a horse too early and ran him a lot, that as a seven-year-old or an eight-year-old, he might not be nearly as good as he would have been if you had taken your time.

“And there’s no way of proving that, one way or the other.”

He generally starts a campaign with 30 horses, although that dwindles as injury and talent deficit have their way. Having been exposed to Arkle, Flyingbolt, Fortria, Fort Leney and all the rest, as well as the many top-tier animals he has handled, he must have a very clear idea of what makes a good chaser. And what needs to be done to get them to flourish.

“When you have real good jumpers like Kilkilowen, who was possibly the best jumper of a fence we ever had – not the best horse but the best jumper of a fence – those horses take absolutely no schooling whatsoever. They are natural. It’s the bad one, or the iffy one – he’s the one you need to help. The good ones do it themselves.

“My father used to oversimplify it. People would say ‘Oh God, you’ve great horses’ and he used to say: ‘They win in spite of us, not because of us.’ It oversimplified it but it was another way of saying that the real good ones, as long as you have them healthy and fit, will win.

“No man, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Dermot Weld or Vincent O’Brien, or Aidan O’Brien nowadays, you won’t make them any better than they can be. All you can try and do is have them fit and well and not do something wrong. Then whatever they can do, they can do.”

He could never envision running an operation of the scale of Closutton but has considerable respect for Willie Mullins, as well as Gordon Elliott and the major flat trainers. Their choice of people is as important as their choice of horses he reckons, and as with his own operation, the team effort is the key.

“From a selfish point of view, of course we yearn for the old days because it wasn’t as hard to win. But, so be it.

“The dominance of Willie and the Gigginstown team is not good for racing in one way, in as much as we’ve had a number of syndicates maybe thinking about buying another one and some of them think ‘Christ, we’ve no chance.’ For every horse they’ll have, Willie’s owners will have 25. It puts some people off. But a horse is a horse. A horse doesn’t know who owns him. If he’s good enough he’ll win.

“Fair play to Willie and Gordon and all these people. They have the horses, they make the best of what they have and that’s what we all need to do.”

Jump racing gets his juices flowing as much as ever. He has never done anything else, never lived anywhere else. If there is one regret, it is that he didn’t spend time in other yards to see how they did things. But he trusts in his way and isn’t going to change now.

Of the Meath man’s other charges, Venitien De Mai ran well for a long way in the Irish Grand National. Given it was only his fifth run over fences, it is reasonable to presume he will improve and could be a player back in Fairyhouse, or maybe Aintree in the future.

Sizing Titanium is eight but has had problems. He has a quicker pedigree and is unlikely to be pushed into the staying categories. The potential remains considerable.

Like Goonyella, those two are owned by Ann and Alan Potts, who have been vital supporters for the past seven years. “One day at Fairyhouse, many years ago, there was a tight photo finish. Alan was there (with Sizing America). Our horse was called Pink Suitcase, ridden by Thomas. As the judge was having a look at the photo, he came over and introduced himself. When the result came out, it went our way.

“He said ‘Bloody ’ell, if you’re going to beat me, I’ll have to send you one.’ And that’s how it started.”

If Goonyella’s customary late charge pays dividends this afternoon, it will have been a fortuitous meeting indeed.