Venetia Williams announces retirement of Mon Mome
The 2009 Grand National hero, Mon Mome’s fantastic career comes to an end, as his trainer Venetia Williams has announced that the 13-year-year is not going to take part in any competition from now onwards.
The French-bred, owned by Mrs Vida Bingham, enjoyed a mixed fortune during his entire career. He won six of his 53 starts, and would always be remembered for creating one of the biggest upsets in Aintree’s long history.
It was Mon Mome’s only big success. In the 2009 John Smith's Grand National Chase (Handicap), nobody was expecting him to make an impact. Raising many eyebrows, the 100-1 chance took a massive 12-length victory.
Despite taking not the best of starts, the Liam Treadwell-ridden did not lose determination. He made steady process to get his head in front three fences before the wire.
There was no stopping afterwards. He led the proceedings after that, and eventually bagged the first prize of £506,970.00 with ease. The son of Passing Sale participated in four events this year, but failed to do anything special.
On his last start, the bay gelding could not even complete the race. Although Mon Mome could not do justice to his talent and won only a few races, his name will always stay alive in the history for his one terrific show at Aintree.
Williams said: "He's been an amazing horse to train and gave me the best day of my career when winning the Grand National. I would have loved for him to have been the first horse since Bindaree [2002] to win again after landing the National, but it was not to be”
"He showed a bit of form at Wincanton earlier this year, but has not run anything like that since and we've decided to retire him, as that was going to be the plan at the end of this season anyway.”
Treadwell, who rode the horse on his last venture, also paid tribute to the talented gelding, and explained that it was a pleasing moment to see him taking a fabulous win at Aintree.
Although the jockey was a little disappointed over not winning races with Mon Mome on regular basis, he mentioned the Alexandre Deschere-bred in really good words.
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