01.04.09 - THE GRAND NATIONAL

Claire bids to join select group of winning women

Only four women have ridden winners over the Grand National fences, but Claire Allen has a fine chance of joining them when partnering Christy Beamish in tomorrow’s £40,000 John Smith’s Fox Hunters’ Chase at Aintree.

Twelve-year-old Christy Beamish won the contest last year under Josh Guerriero, but Allen gained the ride this season and won a point-to-point in Shropshire on the horse before she pulled him up in the Christie’s Foxhunter Chase at last month’s Cheltenham Festival.

Allen, 23, said today: “Cheltenham doesn’t seem to suit him and I knew quite early in the race that things were not going to plan. He’s won weak races on undulating tracks, but he’s much happier on flat courses like Aintree.”

Christy Beamish was trained last year by Wolverhampton-based Paul Jones, who subsequently handed over responsibility for his yard of pointers and hunter chasers to his partner, vet Sue Taylor.

Allen, who was born and raised in Gloucestershire, but now lives near Kingsclere in Hampshire, rode Christy Beamish on Monday at Taylor’s yard.

She said: “He’s a freak. I schooled him over some National-type fences with spruce laid on them and they seemed to turn him on. It’s hard to explain, but he took hold of the bit as if to say, ‘Just hold on, I know what I’m doing’.”

Allen was less than seven weeks old when, in April 1986, Caroline Beasley became the first woman to ride a winner at Aintree. Beasley scored on Eliogarty in the John Smith’s Fox Hunters’ Chase, a race subsequently taken by Polly Gundry in 2002 on Torduff Express and by Carrie Ford two years later on Forest Gunner. Anthea Farrell (nee Beaumont, but now Morshead) won the 1991 Topham Trophy on J J Henry.

“It’s been a massive ambition to ride at Aintree,” said Allen, “especially being a Berkeley girl. I was brought up following the Berkeley Hunt [in Gloucestershire] on my pony over big hedges and ditches, so when I got into point-to-pointing it became my dream to ride at Aintree. I’m just so lucky to get the chance.”

Allen was Britain’s national champion woman point-to-point rider in 2007 and finished runner-up to Polly Gundry last season. She has ridden 86 pointing winners and had one ride over the Mildmay fences when second in a hunter chase last year.

Her boyfriend is Chris Bonner, head lad to trainer Andrew Balding and a former amateur rider who finished third in the 1995 Grand National on Over The Deel and fourth the following season on Sir Peter Lely.

Allen said: “Chris has been giving me plenty of advice, including ‘Sit back, don’t fall off and look like a muppet’, and ‘if you go a stupid speed you’ll go arse over head’.”