MANY racing followers would, understandably, choose to back 10 consecutive losers than read another book about a famous racehorse, dreading the awful sentimentality usually on offer.

Thankfully, McCain, who comes over as an extremely modest individual, spares us any of that nonsense. Even a few mentions of "Rummy" do not grate as references to Desert Orchid as "Dessie" once did.

When Rum Rum, still a month short of his second birthday, dead heated for first place on his racecourse debut, an interested observer at Aintree was Ginger McCain, a used car dealer from Birkdale who was about to set up as a public trainer.

Afterwards, he kept tabs on the horse's progress and was pleasantly surprised a few years later to see Red Rum's name appear in a sale catalogue. He talked Southport's richest resident into buying the horse, who turned out to be the greatest Grand National performer of all time.

From the start, Red Rum thrived in his new surroundings, winning five times, and he started joint favourite for the 1973 National. His victory was overshadowed by the performance of the top weight Crisp, who turned in a breathtaking display of jumping after sweeping clear's with over, a circuit to go, only for his suspect stamina to run out up that murderous 500 yards finish.

The wave of sympathy for the runner up put into the shade that felt for another Australian bred front runner at Augusta recently.

Red Rum, somewhat harshly, headed the weights the following year but showed himself to be a true champion with a second victory. He returned for the next three years, winning once and being placed second twice. A sixth attempt was prevented only by a career ending injury on the eve of the 1978 race.

Some of the pictures, including one of that first victory, are extremely good, and this is a nice tribute to a chaser who can fairly - be bracketed with Arkle and Golden Miller as one of the greats.