Hero's welcome for winning racers (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Hero's welcome for winning racers

BINDAREE had a hero's return to Guiting Power after winning the world's most famous horse race - the Grand National.

He was paraded - along with the winner's trophy - in front of hundreds of jubilant local people and racing fans who converged on the village's pub, The Hollow Bottom, which his trainer, Nigel Twiston-Davies, co-owns with ex-champion jockey, Peter Scudamore.

Mr Twiston-Davies was present, along with Raymond Mould, Bindaree's owner, and Jim Culloty, the jockey who rode the horse to victory at Liverpool's Aintree racecourse.

A white bedsheet, bearing the words 'Congratulations Bindaree and the team from all at The Hollow Bottom', hung down the front of the pub, which was also festooned with banners and Sunday newspaper pages bearing Grand National reports.

Stable girl, Sam Wood, paraded Bindaree in a scene similar to one four years earlier, when Mr Twiston-Davies brought his previous Grand National winner, Earth Summit, to the pub.

The Hollow Bottom's pub sign bears a picture of Earth Summit jumping a fence at the 1998 Grand National.

Celebration almost turned to disaster for Mr Twiston-Davies when his son, William, seven, fell from the roof of the pub's porch, where he had been watching proceedings with friends.

William fell abut nine feet from the roof to the ground but his fall was fortunately broken by a hanging basket and a picnic table umbrella.

He suffered only a grazed cheek, sore leg and a tear in the back of his sweatshirt.

Having endured a poor season, Mr Twiston-Davies is still considering giving racing up.

He said: "I'm still thinking about it - I don't know yet.

"I will definitely carry on until the end of the season but after that I'm not sure."

Mr Culloty is the first jockey in 26 years to win the Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup in the same season.

He rode Bindaree after scheduled rider, Jamie Goldstein broke a leg.

Mr Culloty said: "It is every jockey's dream to win the National or the Gold Cup but I have got them both in the same year.

"It's incredible."

caption: Stable girl Sam Wood kisses victorious Bindaree