1- Devon Loch falls within sight of the finishing line – 1956
Throughout the long history of British horse racing, many members of the royal family have been enthusiastic and active patrons of the industry. Perhaps none more so than Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, owner of hundreds of horses and with 457 race victories to her name. One that remained elusive, despite many attempts, was the Grand National.
This looked set to change in 1956 when her horse Devon Loch lined up for the race. At odds of 100/7, the 10-year-old was ranked amongst the top five or six contenders, and his odds improved when the favourite, Must, fell at the first.
There were still, of course, over four miles and another 29 fences to negotiate, but the horse, ridden by Dick Francis, seemed to manage both the jumps and the trip with ease. With all fences cleared, he rounded the final bend to enter the final straight with a massive lead. Only Irish gelding ESB was in view but well back and going backwards. A victory for the Queen Mother’s horse seemed utterly inevitable.
But, with less than fifty yards to the line, calamity struck. From nowhere the horse appeared to slip, his front legs extending out in front of him while his back legs collapsed to the knees. The horse came to a dead stop. The other horses, much to their jockeys’ and perhaps their own surprise, galloped past the stricken pair. A distraught Francis tried to get his horse moving, but to no avail. They could not even complete the final few metres having watched ESB and others cross the line in front of them.
Many theories were put forward as to why the horse had so suddenly and unexpectedly capitulated. Was it the noise of the crowd, had there been a high pitched sound or laser directed at the horse or, even, had the horse imagined a ghost fence. In the event, it was probably just fatigue at the end of what is always a long and gruelling challenge.
The Queen Mother never had a winner in the National and neither did Dick Francis. Francis never got over it, describing it in later years as “a disaster of massive proportions” and retired from racing a year or so later. He did, though, go on to become a hugely successful novelist, writing more than 40 international best-sellers, all set in the world of horse racing. As for the horse, he continued to live for another six years, and became more famous in defeat than he would ever have been in victory. To this day, to ‘do a Devon loch’ remains a metaphor for turning a certain victory into an unlikely loss.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/1956/mar/26/horseracing
https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/news/grand-national-unlucky-losers-devon-loch/199753
2. Esha Ness wins 1993 Grand National but result is declared null and void
In the most northerly part of the British Isles, the Shetlands, lies a remote and windswept peninsula by the name of Esha Ness. Frequently battered by the high winds and rough seas of the North Atlantic, it features some of the most spectacular coastal scenery in Scotland. Despite that, the name ‘Esha Ness’ is little known except as a quiz curiosity – which horse won the Grand National but didn’t actually win it?
The year was 1993. A strong field had gathered at Aintree including 1992 winner Party Politics, future winner Royal Athlete and 1991 Cheltenham Gold Cup champion, Garrison Savannah. The race got off to an inauspicious start when animal rights protestors held up the start with a protest at the first fence. Once they had been cleared from the course, and the start called, a number of horses set off before the elastic tape holding back the riders had lifted out of the way. A false start was declared and all horses were pulled up.
The jockeys trotted back with their mounts and reassembled at the start. Understandably, some of the horses were a little jumpy and it took some minutes to get them properly lined up. Unbelievably, at the restart there was another problem with the starting mechanism, and a number of riders were caught up in the same elastic tape. Another false start was declared, but most of the riders failed to notice, not least because in this catalogue of errors, the starter’s red flag did not properly unfurl. Around 30 of them headed for the first fence, jumped it and began to contest the race.
As they completed the first ‘lap’ there was a second chance to stop the race. Officials were positioned on the course, waving their red flags, trying to catch the riders’ attention and make it clear that the race was void. Many of the jockeys responded but a handful either missed the signal or misinterpreted it (perhaps they thought that the officials were simply warning of more animal rights intruders on the course). This handful continued to race on.
Had the race been valid, it would have had a pretty gripping finish, but many in the crowd, aware of the ongoing fiasco, booed as the remaining horses galloped down the straight. The ‘winner’ was 50-1 shot Esha Ness, ridden by John White in his eighth national. It’s clear from footage that White knew before he had dismounted that the race would be declared null and void. His face is a picture of dejection. He claims never to have watched the race back on video and who can blame him. I dare say that bookmakers have never re-watched it either as they had to hand back £75m in bets to punters.
An official enquiry, chaired by a High Court judge, was commissioned. It was critical of starter Keith Brown, officiating at his final race before retirement, and Ken Evans, a flag official down the course who failed to notice the second false start. But what the enquiry really shone a light on was the amateurish set up for such an important national event. Suffice to say that many changes were made and to date there has never been a recurrence of the debacle of 1993.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/apr/04/grand-national-1993-farce-race-void
3. Only four horses finish the 2001 Grand National
You could say that running a horse race in the North West of England in the month of April is asking for trouble. The prevailing warm moist westerly winds mean that this part of the country is often prone to heavy spring rainfall, and this obviously affects the condition of the racecourse. Despite this, the ground for recent runnings of the Grand National has rarely been classed as ‘heavy’. It’s often ‘soft’ or ‘soft, heavy in places’, but only four races in the past 25 years have been in the toughest conditions.
One such race was the 2001 Grand National. The spring had not been a good one for horse racing. An outbreak of foot and mouth disease had resulted in a number of meeting cancellations, with the Cheltenham Festival the biggest casualty. The racing industry and spectating public, not to mention the bookmakers, were desperate for top class racing to resume. Had there not been this run-up to Aintree, it’s possible that the meeting would have been postponed but, ultimately, the desire to get horses racing again overcame all of the practical objections to racing in such difficult conditions.
The day of the race arrived with strong winds, heavy rain and extremely heavy going. Bookmakers had offered odds on whether the race would be postponed and, more morbidly, on how few horses would complete the race.
40 horses started. Two fell at the first fence, three at the second, another three at the third. By the time the field approached the eighth, the Canal Turn, 15 horses or riders had fallen. The Canal Turn saw havoc ensue, with another 10 horses either falling or refusing to jump. It took until the 10th – and this with a full 20 fences to be jumped – for a fence to be cleared cleanly, albeit there were only 14 horses still in it at this point.
When one of the pre-race favourites, Beau under Carl Llewellyn fell at the 20th, there were only four horses still standing and two of these – Blowing Wind and Papillon – were completely out of contention with their jockeys having remounted earlier in the race. Some distance ahead of them sat the only two horses to have jumped clear to this point – Red Marauder, a 33/1 outsider and Smarty at 16/1. Both were clearly made of stern stuff, and they provided something resembling of a race over the final third of the course. It was Red Marauder, under Richard Guest, though, that had the legs and pulled clear before the penultimate fence. Smarty, clearly spent, trotted over the finish line a distant second.
Incredibly there were no injuries to horse or jockey despite the carnage. There was, nevertheless, much criticism in the aftermath of the race. Esteemed racing journalist, Alastair Down of the Racing Post, wrote that the decision of the Aintree executive to go ahead with the race was “gutless, witless and utterly reckless”. The race, he wrote, “provided a spectacle – as, in days past, did public executions and the games at the Colosseum.” He was not alone – the race should never have been run.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Grand_National
4. 1997 Grand National postponed due to an IRA bomb threat
Charles Barnett was appointed Managing Director of Aintree in 1993. Running the racecourse and, particularly, managing the Grand National meeting is a big job that must be highly pressured even when things are going well. When things go badly, the stress can go off the scale. Such was the case in 1997, the year in which the feature race was due to be run for the 150th time. The year also incidentally marked the last commentary of broadcasting legend, Peter O’Sullevan.
Saturday 5th April started without a hint of the drama that was to follow. The crowd flooded in and the first three races went off without a hitch. Everything changed just before 3pm when Barnett received a phone call from the local police control room. They advised Barnett that two bomb threats had been received by callers using a recognised codeword used by the Provisional IRA. The callers had warned that at least one explosive device had been planted within Aintree Racecourse.
In the run-up to the 1997 general election (set for 1st May) there had been increased activity from the IRA and several events had been disrupted. This was by some distance the most heavily populated, with 60,000 race goers and workers inside the Aintree boundaries, as well, of course, as many horses.
At first, people were advised to evacuate from the stands to the course itself, but it was then decided that this space needed to be cleared as well. So, 10s of thousands of people were forced out of the grounds and into Liverpool and the surrounding area. The evacuees included all the broadcast teams, with the unflappable Des Lynam having to migrate to the car park to report before being advised on live TV to leave, and actor Gregory Peck, later spotted outside a McDonalds eating a burger. Many of those leaving the course left their belongings behind, thinking that the security alert would be short-lived and they would be back in place shortly.
The crisis did show Liverpool and Liverpudlians at their best. Many racegoers who had travelled to the race were left stranded and had to be put up in hotels, emergency accommodation or in the houses of generous locals. Most of the horses were either taken home or moved to nearby Haydock Park.
There was a controlled explosion on a suspect package just after 4pm, but it did not reveal a bomb and it seems as though one was never planted at the racecourse. The terrorists, though, had achieved their objective of causing fear and disruption.
It took a couple of days for the race to be run. A smaller, but not inconsiderable, crowd of 20,000 turned up on the Monday to watch 14/1 shot, Lord Gyllene, win comfortably from Suny Bay and Camelot Knight. Sadly, his victory will be remembered less than the bomb threat that ruined many people’s big day out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct4shm
5. Crisp runs out of steam in the 1973 Grand National
It is perhaps controversial to select one of the most epic races of all-time and one that marked the birth of perhaps the greatest Grand National legend as a worst moment, but Red Rum’s amazing victory in 1973 was at least as notable for Crisp’s failure to win.
Crisp was an outstanding Australian horse whose owners had brought him to England to escape punitive handicapping in his native country. After impressing in his early starts in the UK, Crisp was installed as favourite for the 1973 Grand National, at 9/1. Alongside him in the betting was an Irish horse trained by in nearby Southport by Ginger McCain, Red Rum. Although less experienced and not as strong as Crisp, Red Rum had the advantage of carrying 23 pounds less than his Australian rival (10st 5lb vs the top weight of 12st).
The race, in truth, did not resemble a race for almost all of its distance. Crisp strode out into an early lead and was 20-25 lengths in front by the time he entered the second circuit. Never in any trouble getting over the fences and running powerfully throughout, he continued to hold a huge gap over the only horse in any sort of contention, Red Rum, as he crossed the last. As he rounded the final kink in the track to the finishing straight there was only one winner.
There was, however, to be a twist. Red Rum’s jockey, Brian Fletcher, had clearly kept something in reserve with his horse, whereas Richard Pitman on Crisp had perhaps not preserved enough energy with his. Crisp seemed suddenly to be treading in treacle while Red Rum gained with every step. Even with just a furlong to go, Crisp was still firm favourite but Red Rum was relentless and overhauled his rival yards before the finishing post to win by ¾ of length. The next horse to finish – L’Escargot, a two-time Gold Cup winner and future winner (1975) of the National – trailed in fully 25 lengths behind.
Crisp had the consolation that he had run the second fastest race of all time, and of being generally rated the best Grand National runner not to win. But that is really no consolation whatsoever for a great horse and a pretty good jockey.