Grand National 2023: Inside the chaos of void race 30 years on

Thirty years ago, one of the greatest British sporting debacles of all time took place; the voiding of the Grand National after two false starts.

Nine of the 39 runners were left stranded at the start, some tangled in the elastic starting tape, 14 set out on a second circuit and seven horses, led home by Esha Ness, completed the course in what came to be known as ‘the race that never was’.

Marcus Armytage, who joined Telegraph Sport as one of its racing correspondents a fortnight later, rode Travel Over in the race.

The starter, Captain Keith Brown said, afterwards: “Anything that could go wrong, did.” 

As you can see in the below YouTube clip, many things did go wrong that day; the antiquated starting mechanism with its weathered elastic tape which stretched the width of the course and was, in itself, an accident waiting to happen.

On top of it was the long delay caused by 15 animal rights protestors who had to be forcibly removed from the course, then there was the reluctance of some horses to come into line up, further delaying the second start, while other keyed-up horses and jockeys were trying to anticipate the starter to ensure a clear run to the first.

Then, among the chaos of 39 horses going in all directions, there was the failure of semaphore; the starter’s red flag failing to unfurl and the flagman’s hasty departure from the line of fire in the face of 30 horses bearing down on him.

If any one of those had worked as it should, Aintree would have got away with it. But if one thing compounded all the problems it was something that no one had any control over; the sporting weather gods that day.

Of course the 'Rashomon effect' is that if you have four witnesses you get four different versions of events. Here we had 39, but this is mine.  

It was cold, spring thrown back into winter, and it was blowing in wet and windy off the Irish Sea. I am always telling my children there’s no such thing as cold, only unsuitable clothing and, my goodness, virtually see-through nylon breeches, paper thin boots, a pair of ladies tights and a set of lightweight silks, like wearing a tee shirt to the Arctic, is my overriding memory of that day.

Apart from the anticipation of the challenge of clearing such National landmarks as Becher's Brook, the Canal Turn, Valentine's and The Chair, and the possibility of winning the greatest race of all, above all I wanted to get going to warm up after the interminable 20-minute delay to the race, and as 26 of my weighing room colleagues also had 10st 2lb or less and had spent the best part of a morning in the sauna, I was not alone in being shiveringly cold.

Back then I was mad for the National and Aintree. Winning it in 1990 on Mr Frisk had not quite sated my desire to, if not win it again, at least be a part of it every year and get the enormous buzz that came with taking part.

With nothing obvious for me to ride, I had rung Richard Lee about a fortnight before the race on the off-chance he needed a jockey for Travel Over, a big black 12-year-old gelding belonging to William Haggas’s mother, Christine Feather, whose silks had been carried to Gold Cup success by Silver Buck in 1982.

He was a 100-1 shot and the first time I set eyes on him was in the paddock for the National. Size alone is no guarantee that a horse will jump round Aintree but, at least, he could see over the first when I showed him it, which is a help.

Once that formality had been done we circled at the start for a long time, getting colder, waiting, it transpired, for protestors to be removed from down by the first fence.

The wind meant you could hear neither Captain Brown nor the crowd and we were all on top of the tapes. I can still see in my mind’s eye, over towards the inside, from a line of horses’ noses, one stuck its head up and nose out just as the tapes flew up for the first time, catching and breaking the elastic which also went in several other places. Though I let Travel Over canter down to the first fence with a few others just to warm us up, I never saw the flagman but we knew instantly it had been a false start.

The tape was set up again but, ominously on reflection, this time knotted together where it had broken. There was no replacement tape. We were all too close to it, ready to go again, but Chatam in particular was refusing to come into line or even face the right way, which further delayed the start.

But again, as the tapes sprung up, another horse caught his nose on it. This time there was pandemonium. The tape became tangled round Travel Over’s legs and round the neck of Richard Dunwoody on Won’t Be Gone Long beside me. When I moved, the noose tightened round Dunwoody’s neck. Like it or not, we were not so much stranded on the start line, we were anchored to it and each other.

I am not an expert on body language but as the 30 others set off, from behind I could see their jockeys set. I am not sure anything, any flag or anyone would have stopped them. Instinct told me they were not coming back and, for that reason, once untangled I set off after them, jumped the first not very well, some way behind them. Futile. I pulled Travel Over up and that was me done.

I was a bit miffed not to have had the fun of the fair and, if they ran the race again, my horse, who was also lame by this stage, would be counted as a starter so unable on several counts to go into what appeared the most likely of events; a nine-horse National. In the unseemly aftermath, as tempers frayed – I missed much of it because I had to get ready to ride in the next race – I also thought that there was an even chance the stewards might well reverse the decision to void the race.

At the time I do not think any of us knew that we had ridden in such a historical non-race, the 147th and only void National. I felt sorry for Captain Keith Brown and Ken Evans getting the blame. Keith was a good starter and is a dear man. I liked Ken too. Afterwards he used to man the door to the press room at Chester, so I’d chat with him but I always felt the 1993 National was the elephant in the room.

After that, starting procedures became much more professional – though it still is not really a National without one false start. I had my turn in 1990 and I often wondered how I’d have felt if it happened three years earlier, so I felt terrible for everyone, owners, trainers and jockeys, who might have missed their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win the race, but too many pulled up after a circuit to say, conclusively, that Esha Ness would have won regardless.

A massive cock-up at the time it might have been, with bookmakers having to return £75 million in bets, but three decades on it is now just another dramatic chapter in the colourful history of the world’s greatest race. And, of course, Aintree, the National, the Jockey Club and the sport, redeemed themselves four years later by, against the odds, getting the Bomb Scare National on.  

“When Party Politics had won it the year before, he had started gurgling after a circuit. This year he’d been tubed [an operation to help horses breathe]. He was in much better form and – barring accidents or bad luck – I’d been as confident as you could be for a race like that. 

“He was running away with a circuit to go, but after the water jump I saw his trainer’s travelling head lad waving his arms and shouting to pull up. I had no idea it was a void race until then but I knew and trusted him. In a race like that you don’t know if there are 30 or 40 horses running – you just know there are a lot of horses. 

“It was hard to absorb, pulling up at half-way in the world’s biggest race. Was it one that got away? Probably, yes, he’d have taken a lot of beating.”  

“Coming over for the National was a big thing in my life. I can’t say how exciting. Every day, even now, my heart and my head is with British jump racing. It took two and a half days to bring the horse across Europe. After one circuit I jumped the water and saw the flagman so I pulled up. 

“Afterwards they wrote a letter asking me to come back the next year, but it was very soft in 1994, Quirinus jumped too big and fell at The Chair. I’m now 57 and still looking to find a horse to bring back to the National.”

“There was a photograph after a circuit of a jockey looking back at a man waving a flag and that jockey is me. But I had no recollection of that. I remember going down to the open ditch [19th] and someone saying to Charlie Swan [on Cahervillahow] that they thought it was going to be void and he replied: ‘I’m going to keep going, this fella’s never jumping better.’ That conversation definitely took place! It’d have been a brave man to pull up. 

“There was always a possibility they would say it wasn’t void and we were all consumed by the hunger to win a National. There’s always a lot of crowd noise and you couldn’t tell whether they were cheering you on or screaming at you to stop. 

“It’s hard to describe how in the zone you are in a race like the National. The best way of describing it is that if a footballer is faced with an open goal but thinks he’s offside he’s still going to keep playing, stick it in the net and hope – until the whistle goes.”

“The whole thing was chaos and the hold-up because of the animal rights protestors did not help. I don’t remember much about it but my English teacher telling us that an empty vessel makes the most noise comes to mind. 

“When I walked in afterwards John Buckingham, my valet [who had famously won the race on 100-1 shot Foinavon in 1967] insisted that I weigh in because there was a feeling that they might reverse the decision to void it. No one was making sense and a lot of people were crying. I think Esha Ness would have won had it been a normal National, he’d have won easily. Was it the one which got away? Yes, but it wasn’t my fault. But worse things happen, at the end of the day it’s only a horse race round a field.”

“There weren’t too many in the queue to ride Howe Street. He was a two-miler and was effectively having to run two races. He was on fumes when he fell at the 20th. I couldn’t really hold him – he’d passed about six in the air at Becher’s first time, hit the front and there was no stopping him – even if I’d wanted. I saw bollards in front of The Chair and thought ‘what’s happening here?’ but I assumed it was animal rights. 

“On the television you can see us passing right by a lot of horses milling about but you’re so focused that you didn’t see them. The first I knew it was void was, after I’d fallen, I got into a car driven by Ron Barry and heard Peter Bromley on the radio. I said to Ron ‘what do they mean?’ and he said half of them hadn’t started. I had to do something on ITV the day after and thought they’d all be sitting in judgement wearing black caps because I’d been in front, but everyone was very nice about it!”

“It wasn’t the National I was most looking forward to. Won’t Be Gone Long had given me one of the best spins I ever had over the course in the 1990 Topham, but he’d been brought down one day and after that had lost his confidence. I couldn’t school him the weekend before because I had a broken hand but he had put Martin Lynch, who stepped in for me, in hospital so it wasn’t promising.

“The first time we all knew it was a false start, the second time the tape became wrapped round my neck and round the feet of the horse next to me. Everytime he stepped forward the elastic pulled tighter. It was made out to be a bit more dramatic than it was, I was never in danger of being strangled! 

“I went to try and help stop the ones which were still going after a circuit and then put on [owner] Robert Waley-Cohen’s coat, five sizes too big, as we waited for the re-run which never happened. There was always the story that one jockey had turned to one of the Irish lads after a circuit saying: ‘I think we’re supposed to pull up’ and the other replying: ‘I’m going far too well for that.’ 

“I think Keith Brown having to carry the can was pretty mean – he clearly waved his flag, it just didn’t unfurl. I’d videoed it and on Sunday morning a few friends came round and we were rolling around on the floor at the comedy of it all. Of course it was serious at the time, but it is now part of Grand National history.”

“Latent Talent was a great big plank of a horse who had fallen over the fences in the previous year’s Topham. I think I’d tried to get on anything but him, so I was not among the most disappointed not to jump anything. I did get a bit excited when they talked about re-running with just nine runners. 

“I thought I might be able to wagon him round, especially as there would have been a few holes in the fences, and took a look the others who’d failed to start [none less than 28-1] and thought I’d beat them. So I went from being uninspired about it to excited, but it didn’t happen. 

“When Keith Brown came in he looked like a man about to face the firing squad – I felt very sorry for him, he was such a nice man and a very good starter. At the time I had to play the ‘gutted’ role but, really, I wasn’t.”