The bomb squad and a birthday present: trainer starts the week with a bang

Talk about a birthday going with a bang – Nick Gifford marked the eve of turning 49 with a visit from the bomb squad and a long wished-for victory in the race named after his father.

The Royal Navy bomb disposal team were called to a field next to Gifford's gallops in West Sussex on Monday to detonate an unexploded remnant from the time the village of Findon played host to troops from World War II.

"It was in a hay meadow, one of the big fields beside the gallops, 400 or 600 metres from the yard," the trainer said on Tuesday. "It's a field we just cut hay off in the summer, it's not as though we ever use it.

"A friend of a friend was out there with his metal detector and he found the top of a mortar shell so he rang the relevant authorities and the bomb disposal people turned up. When they blew it up it was just a little powder puff."

Gifford, who has been at the helm at the South Downs yard since taking over from his late father Josh in 2003, pointed the finger at a transatlantic troop detachment.

"There was a battalion of Canadian soldiers barracked here in one of the pubs in the village," he said. "We're on top of the Downs and I should think it was probably a practice range. The mortar shell was under the ground, unexploded, and they forgot about it."

Gifford's father won the Grand National with Aldaniti in 1981 and is commemorated by the Josh Gifford Memorial Mares' Handicap Hurdle at Plumpton, and his son was delighted finally to win the race when Rose Of Aghaboe scored under Tabitha Worsley.

Watch an emotional winner for Nick Gifford in his father's race

"It was lovely," he said. "I'd yet to have a runner in the race before, it used to annoy me every year that I didn't have anything ready to run in it so it was nice that I had the right horse at the right time and the ground came right for her – all the boxes were ticked.

"It was emotional – it's my birthday today so it's two presents rolled into one."

Rose Of Aghaboe was a third winner from the yard's last five runners and Gifford said: "The horses are all running well – long may it continue."

More to read:

The most moving moments in Grand National history: Aldaniti

Nick Embiricos, owner of fairytale Grand National hero Aldaniti, dies aged 81

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