Legendary triple Grand National winner Red Rum was a firm favourite at Carlisle. Now, at the race day named in Rummy’s honour, a Cumbrian horse will look to better his own fantastic treble.

In the annals of horse racing history, Carrigdhoun will warrant a mere footnote compared to the exploits of the late, great Red Rum.

In truth, few horses do stand in comparison with the triple Grand National winner – a household name of the 1970s and the marker for all would-be top-level steeplechasers.

But Carrigdhoun has quietly notched up his own hat-trick and, in the race meeting that honours Red Rum’s achievements at Carlisle on Thursday, the 12-year-old dashing grey could add another trophy to the collection.

Carrigdhoun, owned and trained by Maurice and Anne Barnes at their yard in Farlam, near Brampton, is on a three-race winning streak at Carlisle.

This includes a triumph in last year’s Windermere Handicap Chase – the race famously used as a season opener for Red Rum and which he won preceding all three of his Aintree triumphs.

Last year, the Carlisle track celebrated 40 years since Red Rum’s last win in Cumbria by renaming the opening meeting of its National Hunt season #RedRumDay. It’s continuing the connection this year with a seven-race card.

This means a chance for Carrigdhoun to extend his impressive form and bring more success for the Barnes’ who’ve already notched nine jumps winners in the season to date.

Maurice, now 66, has spent a lifetime in racing from watching his late father ride and train, to becoming a Grand National winning jockey himself, before taking up training in 1988.

So, he’s wary of making any grand predictions, but it’s clear he’s got the 19th pencilled in for Carrigdhoun.

Maurice said: “Touch wood he’s in good heart, good form.”

Anne, 62, said: “He gets to a racecourse and he knows what to do. He doesn’t get worked up but he’s still excited.

“He’s not over raced, he’s low mileage. He doesn’t get that many runs in the season. He’s still as daft as a brush, you’d think he’s about six out there.”

Anne added: “He is getting older. You think there’s bound to be some young ones coming along. But he gets the adrenalin going.

“When they’ve gone over the top, they go to the course and they’re flat, they don’t show any interest.

“You know when they are buzzing and happy and still enjoying it, and you know when they’ve gone flat and need a rest.”

Maurice was pleased with Carrigdhoun’s September return at Perth in conditions that weren’t particularly suitable.

The horse has eight career wins to date – not bad for a chaser the Barnes’ stable was advised not to take on after the horse suffered leg problems.

He still has some way to go to top their heaviest winner, the long-retired Beaucadeau with 13 wins. No Such Numbers, who only joined the Barnes’ yard in April, has already notched up an eye-catching four first places at Hexham and Uttoxeter.

So, what is it they look for in a horse when it comes to owning or training?

“They have to be a good walker, a nice mover. A good temperament. We’re not worried about form. It’s just something that catches your eye,” Maurice said.

Anne added: “Sometimes, you’ve ones that you’ve got your eye on from the brochure and you see them and you don’t fancy them and another one you do.

“Sometimes, you think you can improve them from this or that yard and sometimes you do, and others you don’t.”

Maurice admits that, despite Carrigdhoun’s repeat Carlisle successes, the course has been something of a mixed track for him. A training highlight was a Cumberland Plate success with Oddsmaker in 2007.

Before that, as a jockey, he suffered his share of heavy falls and Carlisle is remembered as the track where he lost a good number of his teeth. But like many trainers, he likes the way horses must strive there to get good results.

He said: “They have to stay. Two miles there is more like two-and-a-half anywhere else. That four furlongs to the finish is quite steep. It’s a stayer’s track.”

It’s that tough test that brought Rummy’s trainer Ginger McCain back to Carlisle, looking to put his star performer through his paces.

Maurice himself knows what it takes to win the world’s most famous race, triumphing as he did on Rubstic in 1979. It was one place better than his late father Tommy, a National runner-up, whose funeral was held in Penrith on Monday, on Wyndburgh in 1962.

Maurice said: “That was the only advice he gave me before I rode in the National, ‘go and do better than me’.”

Interested new owners are treated to a re-run of Rubstic’s success at the couple’s home, overlooking some stunning North Cumbrian countryside.

But Maurice is more interested in current day runners than deeds of the past and it’s only when pressed that a few details of his finest career achievement are given up.

“He [Rubstic] was always up the front, he always did that,” he said. “It’s as we were going to the last that I thought I had a good chance.

“Three of us jumped in a line and he just kept going. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur.”

While the crowds’ cheers must seem a long way away as the early morning routine begins at Tarnside Farm, the memory of Red Rum won’t be the only Grand National connection when jump racing returns to Carlisle next week.

A day in the life at Tarnside Farm

Currently residing at Tarnside Farm are 31 horses at varying stages of their career from the experienced to the novice. A typical day would be:

6am: Feeding time.

7am: Staff in and start mucking out

8am: First horses ridden out on grass or sand gallops. Roughly an hour per horse.

During this time young horses schooled in jumps. Some horses using newly-installed undercover walker to warm up.

1pm: All horses back in. Staff break.

3.30pm: Staff back in feeding and mucking out. Jumps put back together, ground prepared for next day’s training.

5.30pm: Finish