In recent years, Geraldine Rees has
been better known as racehorse trainer and, since she relinquished
her licence in 2010, as the head of GSR Thoroughbreds, a breeding
operation based at Moor Farm, near Preston, Lancashire. However, in
her younger days, Geraldine was a highly accomplished amateur rider
and has the distinction of being the first woman to complete the
Grand National course.
In 1982, at the age of 26, Geraldine
rode Cheers into a weary eighth, and last, place behind Grittar,
ridden by 48-year-old Dick Saunders. Her original intended mount,
Gordon’s Lad, went lame shortly before the race and, when her
attempt to buy Cheers – who’d finished twelfth behind Aldaniti in
1981 and was entered for the Grand National again in 1982 – at
auction failed, the winning bidder booked her for the ride in any
case.
Geraldine wasn’t the first woman to
ride in the Grand National. That distinction is held by Charlotte
Brew, who in 1977, at the age of 21, rode her own horse, Barony Fort.
The 12-year-old had qualified for the race by finishing fourth in the
Fox Hunters’ Chase, over one circuit of the National fences, at
Aintree the previous year, but was hopelessly tailed off when
refusing at the fourth last. Of course, 1977 was the year in which
Red Rum won his unprecedented third Grand National, so Charlotte was
destined to play second fiddle to the legendary steeplechaser.
