Cancer, broken down tendons and triumph over adversity.

I won 500 quid this afternoon.

Let me explain...I know a teeny bit about racehorses and jump racing. I don't really know anything about flat racing, which is a bit weird, seeing as I work for people who breed and own flat racehorses. Luckily, for them, not knowing anything about flat horses doesn't impede my job.

Anyway, I seldom bet off-course, but I always chuck a few quid on Aintree and the National meet. My mother always did too. My betting strategy is really complex: I bet on 2 horses per race...always the grey and always one with a name I like. See, a really complicated betting system. Anyway, I tend to win more than I lose. Go figure.

This afternoon was the Foxhunters. That's the amateurs riding over the National fences. I put a tenner, via my internet account, on the grey. He came in at 50-1. The dosh will be going to Best Friend's mad leap for Macmillan Cancer later in the year...

The reason I am blogging about this does have something to do with cancer...just in case you think I am attempting to flesh out my bloggy character with real life.

I wanted to be a jockey when I was a kid. Far to tall and far too female. But I started riding out when I was 13 years old and I did race ride a few times. I would have loved to have done the Foxhunter. Not good enough, I am afraid and far too female. This was the 1980s...things were different then.

I lived in a place called Findon, in West Sussex. The big jump trainer there was Josh Gifford and his stable jockey was Bob Champion. Bob was diagnosed with testicular cancer when he was 31 and given a few months to live unless he underwent chemo. This was the late 70s; it wasn't as user-friendly then.

Bob did it. He survived and a few short months after getting fit again, he won the 1981 Grand National on a horse called Aldaniti, trained by Josh Gifford in Findon. It was all the more amazing because Aldaniti had broken down and broken his hock...his tendons gave out and he should have retired and certainly never raced again. Somehow, all those involved, people I knew like Snowy Davis and Peter Double, got that horse back from the brink in time for the Grand National.

This was a very big deal back then...a true story of overcoming adversity and triumphing in a most spectacular way. I was there when Bob and Aldaniti returned to Findon with the trophy. I have never forgotten that Sunday lunchtime, when everyone wore the blue and white of the Embiricos colours Bob wore and we cheered them all home.

A few years later, a film was made of the story starring John Hurt. They used the film score of that movie for the BBC coverage of the Grand National for many, many years afterwards and it always, always brings a tear to my eyes. I think this is partly because their story was so incredible and partly because I have a few regrets that I was never able to ride those fences in my teenage fantasy.

This afternoon I cheered my grey home with a tear in my eye. That was my race-that-I-never-rode-in (and never would have done anyway, but you know what I mean), and Aintree and those fences are all about Champion and Aldaniti to me...

...and overcoming cancer, even when the odds are against you.

Mind you, my betting system should mean the odds are gainst me. I won a few quid. Life isn't so bad...

Anyway, if you want a tip for the National don't ask me. I just do the greys and the one with the weird name. OK, take a look at a horse called The Package and King John's Castle. Don't say I didn't warn you, I am an awful tipper...

Quote of the evening: "Success is not measured by what you accomplish...but by the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds" Orison Marden

And that is for Tricia, the woman I spoke to this morning on the radio with terminal breast cancer. Keep saddling up lady.