Having won the Ultima Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival for the second year running, Corach Rambler was able to line up for the 2023 Grand National off an unchanged handicapped and, as arguably the best-handicapped horse in the field, was sent off 8/1 favourite. The market support proved justified because, having lead over the final fence, the nine-year-old soon went clear and, although idling in the closing stages, passed the post two-and-a-quarter lengths of his nearest pursuer, Vanillier.
In so doing, Corach Rambler became a second Grand National winner for both his jockey, Derek Fox – who rode him in all 18 races under National Hunt Rules – and his trainer, Lucinda Russell, after One For Arthur in 2017. Not for the first time in his career, Fox had made a swift return from injury to ride in the National, having damaged his collarbone in a fall from Rowdy Rustler in a handicap chase at Wetherby just a week beforehand and passed a fitness test on the morning of the race.
Following a creditable third, behind Galopin Des Champs, in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Corach Rambler lined up, off a handicap mark 13lb higher than the previous year, for the 2024 Grand National. He was again well-fancied, but stumbled and unseated rider at the first fence, before being knocked over, when running loose, at the second. He ran just once more, in the Grade 1 Punchestown Gold Cup two weeks later, but was never going well or jumping with fluency and was tailed off when pulled up before two out. He was retired, as a 10-year-old shortly afterwards, with Russell saying, “. Corach Rambler will always be a special horse for us, we owe him so much.”
A winner of one of his five point-to-point starts, Corach Rambler also won two of his three starts over hurdles, but it was as a steeplechaser, over regulation fences, that he made his name. After two wins in novices’ limited handicap chases, he was sent off favourite for the Grade 2 Reynoldstown Novices’ Chase at Ascot in February 2022, but unseated Fox five fences from home, when making headway. On his next start, he won the Ultima Handicap Chase for the first time and went on to finish his steeplechasing career with a 5-15 record.