Grand National Velvet

"National Velvet" was originally a novel by British author and playwright Enid Bagnold (1889-1981), whose great-granddaughter is Samantha Cameron, wife of the UK's current Prime Minister David Cameron.

First published in 1935, National Velvet tells the story of a young girl, Velvet Brown from a small village in Sussex on the south coast of England, who becomes obsessed with winning the Grand National.

But perhaps the film version - created nine years after the novel was published - is what really made the story famous, and is familiar to millions of Grand National horse racing enthusiasts the world over.

The film was instrumental in helping to launch the career of the late Elizabeth Taylor – then just 12 years old – who played the role of Velvet Brown, and a young Angela Lansbury as one of her two older sisters.

In the film version, Velvet (along with Mi Taylor played by Mickey Rooney) sees "The Pie" (in the novel, the horse was a black and white piebald) running loose in a field and jumping a wall equivalent to Becher's Brook – according to Mi, a former jockey.

Velvet wins The Pie in a raffle and she and Mi Taylor train him all through the winter thinking continually about winning the great race – whose entry is paid for by Velvet's Mother's prize money for swimming the English Channel years before when she was trained by Mi's father.

The night before the National, Velvet meets The Pie's intended Russian jockey, "Tasky", immediately senses he doesn't truly believe in The Pie, and dismisses him on the spot.

The next day, posing as Tasky after her hair has been shorn by Mi Taylor, Velvet goes on to win the Grand National against all the odds, but falls off the horse just after the finishing line and is already disqualified before being discovered as an adolescent female and becoming a national heroine. It's a good job they didn't have inplay betting in those days, as fictional punters would have been most annoyed!

A tall tale perhaps, but National Velvet certainly played its part in helping to create the international legend that is The Grand National steeplechase.