Grant Cann

Grant Cann was a top west country amateur rider in the 1960s and early 1970s, riding a total of 65 winners under Rules including the 1969 National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham on Lizzy The Lizard.

The son of Collumpton, Devon trainer Jack Cann, Jack Grant Cann – always known by his second Christian name to differentiate him from his father – was born in Tiverton on August 23, 1942 and made an amazing start to his riding career, riding his first four winners at Devon & Exeter’s 1962 Whitsun meeting, registering doubles on both days. 

His first winner was on Les Kennard’s Rolling Rapture in the Bidford Chase on Saturday, June 9, 1962, then one hour later he won a novice hunters’ chase on Rising Way. On the Bank Holiday Monday, he scored again on Rolling Rapture and also won a novices’ chase on Master Jim. 

He rode five winners the following season and two the one after that but raised his tally to eight in 1964/65. Half of those victories were achieved on Weensland Lad, who won two hunter chases and two 3m 1f Newton Abbot handicap chases, including the Torquay Hotels Association Challenge Bowl by eight lengths. 

Grant and Weensland Lad combined to win five races early in the 1965/66 campaign at the south-west tracks, dead-heating with Nick Gaselee’s mount Staggered at Wincanton in the last of them. At the back end of the season he rode three winners at Devon & Exeter’s 1966 Whitsun fixture and won three times on Ted Fisher’s novice chaser Golden Spirit II, all of which helped him achieve a score of 12 for the season.

He rode Lizzy The Lizard to win the National Hunt Chase for amateur riders at Cheltenham on March 18, 1969. The mare led at the final fence and scored by six lengths from Racoon, ridden by subsequent Grand National-winning trainer Nick Gaselee. Among the fallers were horses ridden by Michael Dickinson, Dermot Weld, Arthur Moore and Robert Alner.

On a somewhat lesser scale, Grant also won that season’s Charles Vicary Memorial Challenge Cup Chase at Newton Abbot aboard Pharaoh Hophra, trained by his father.

But Lizzy The Lizard wasn’t the best horse he rode during the spring of 1969. Not by a long chalk. The top-class chaser What A Myth, a former Whitbread Gold Cup winner but by then on the downgrade, had been sent hunting to rekindle his enthusiasm by his highly astute trainer Ryan Price. Grant rode What A Myth to victory on his comeback run in a Market Rasen hunters’ chase on March 1 and then followed up at Newbury seven days later. Next time out, reunited with his regular pilot Paul Kelleway, 48 hours after Grant had won the National Hunt Chase, What A Myth revelled in the heavy ground, battling on up the hill to win that year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup by a length and a half from Domacorn. Aged 12, What A Myth equalled the record as the oldest Gold Cup winner, a record that still stands.

That season, 1968/69, Grant equalled his best personal best score under Rules of 12 wins, which made him joint runner-up with Alan Mactaggart in the amateur riders' championship, five behind the champion Richard Tate (17). Behind them were a young Michael Dickinson (11 wins) and future Grand National-winning rider Dick Saunders (10 wins).

Grant’s name appeared on racecourse number boards less often over the ensuing years and he never again rode more than three winners in a season. Nonetheless he achieved two notable victories in the latter part of his riding career, courtesy of Devon permit holder Oliver Carter’s hunter chaser Otter Way, on whom he won Stratford’s John Corbet Cup – the most prestigious race for novice hunters – in 1975, and the Horse and Hound Cup Final Champion Hunters’ Chase at the same course on June 5, 1976, beating two top-notch horses in Stanhope Street and False Note. The last-named had won that season’s Foxhunters’ Chase at Cheltenham.

Otter Way was one of several winners he partnered for Carter, another being Lucky Rock, who provided the duo with seven point-to-point wins in 1977. 

In February 1980, he owned, trained and rode Village Mark to win Stratford’s Credit Call Cup Hunters’ Chase and then won on him again at Wolverhampton the following week. In 1981, he repeated his Credit Call Cup triumph on Village Mark.

He finished second on Village Mark at Wolverhampton on March 22, 1982, beaten by the useful Michael Dickinson-trained hunter chaser Compton Lad. They started odds-on for their next assignment at Devon & Exeter on April 2, 1982 but pulled up in the closing stages. That was one of Grant Cann’s last rides under Rules. In 1983 he was forced to quit race riding due to a shoulder injury.

In addition to having ridden 65 winners under Rules, he amassed 217 point-to-point wins and would have been national men’s champion on at least two occasions had he not been competing in the era of the nearly invincible David Turner, son of Joe Turner whose East Anglian yard was by far the most productive source of winners for much of that time.

He began training on the family farm at Cullompton when his father retired in 1988. He mainly trained point-to-pointers but also under Rules. His first winner under Rules as a trainer was Friendly Lady in the 1993 John Corbet Cup. In 2005 he sent out Mrs Be to win the Horse & Hound Cup (run that year as the Intrum Justitia Cup).

He continued to operate on a small scale with no more than half a dozen horses. He trained his final point-to-point winner in 2014 when his step-daughter, Amanda Bush, rode How’s My Friend to victory at Woodford.

In June 2019 he sent out 14-year-old veteran John Daniell to win his first race under Rules in a three-miler novice chase at Uttoxeter, ridden by Harry Cobden, who was only six years older than the horse.

He saddled Queen Of The Court to win twice at Taunton in January and February 2022.  

Grant Cann died on November 7, aged 83. His widow, Ollie, was a successful point-to-point trainer in her own right, handling such multiple winners as John Daniell, Dennis The Legend and Vinnie Boy. 

In his entry in the Directory of the Turf 1970 Grant said: “Learned to ride on a 14.2 pony that knew everything in the hunting field and in hunter trials. The pony taught me everything, in fact he forgot more than I shall remember!”