IN 1968, all Bishop Auckland was backing Red Alligator for the Grand National. He was a local horse, owned by butcher Jack Manners, trained in South Church by Denys Smith and ridden by 19-year-old Brian Fletcher, who came from Butterknowle.

The year before, he’d run in third, despite being caught in the famous “Foinavon pile-up”, and in 1968, those following him had already seen him win the Durham National at Sedgefield and the Yorkshire National at Catterick before he went over to Aintree in peak condition.

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And, of course, he not only won but he romped home, 17 lengths clear. Although favourite when the race started, many in Bishop had backed him when the odds were long, and it is said that hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of mortgages were paid off with the winnings.

The Northern Echo:

Denys Smith and his blacksmith William Spowart welcome home to South Church, Bishop Auckland, Red Alligator after hisGrand National victory in 1968

Two days after the race, Red Alligator was given a civic reception, processing regally – and perhaps by the end a little drunkenly – the length of Newgate Street, past Mr Manners’ butchers, to the town hall. Newgate Street was then lined with pubs so the procession took ages, because every pub offered Brian in the saddle a congratulatory drink with a bucket of beer for the horse.

The Northern Echo: Brian Fletcher on Red Alligator in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland in 1968

Brian Fletcher on Red Alligator in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland in 1968

“I think he enjoyed himself that day,” said Denys some years later.

The Northern Echo: Backtrack - Horse racing - Brian Fletcher toasts the success of Red Alligator

A glass for the jockey and a bucket of beer for the horse, Red Alligator

Red Alligator – his name came from his parents, Magic Red and Miss Alligator – was given a day or so to recover before attending another big do. This time he was guest of honour when a pub a couple of hundred yards down the road from Denys’ yard at Holdforth Farm was renamed. Ever since Victorian times, it had been known as the Crown & Anchor, but now it became Red Alligator.

The Northern Echo: RED ALLIGATOR OPENING THE PUB AT SOUTH CHURCH BISHOP AUCKLAND 1973

Red Alligator and butcher Jack Manners open the renamed Red Alligator pub in South Church in 1973

With the horse that day was Jack Manners, not as we said in Memories 635, Denys Smith.

“Jack had only become full owner about three months before the race,” says Alan Thexton, in Harmby, near Leyburn, who was working in the Bishop branch of the Midland bank in 1968. “He’d been part-owner with someone from Beal but bought him out just before.”

The Northern Echo: ICONIC: Grand National-winning trainer Denys Smith admires the painting of Red Alligator in the pub of the same name.

Denys Smith and a picture of Red Alligator in the South Church pub - Denys was a regular in the pub until his death in 2016 at the age of 92 

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