He was ridden by jockey Tony Dobbin, trained by Steve Brookshaw at his Preston Farm base in Uffington, Shropshire, and ran in the colours of Stanley Clarke.

The police evacuated 60,000 people from the course, stranding 20,000 racegoers, media personnel and those connected to the competing horses, as their vehicles remained locked inside the confines of the course.

Fewer than 10,000 of the original crowd were expected to return for the postponed race, but over 20,000 turned out at Aintree on Monday 7 April to watch Lord Gyllene gallop to a 25-length victory, 49 hours late.

The Ascot specialist was considered to have been largely undervalued in the weights and was due to go off carrying the minimum ten stones with the previous year's winning rider Mick Fitzgerald in the saddle.

Go Ballistic set off at 7/1 favourite but struggled to keep pace with the leaders; he was lying a distant tenth when he broke a blood vessel approaching the penultimate fence and was pulled up.

[8] Suny Bay was an eight-year-old whose popularity was assisted by his being a grey, but was mostly built on a victory in the Grand National Trial at Haydock in February, beating Lo Stregone.

Ridden by Jamie Osborne, Suny Bay was sent off at 8/1 and ran prominently throughout but was beginning to tire when he made a bad mistake at the fourth fence from home.

[9] Wylde Hide was a ten-year-old, two-times winner of the Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park who was carrying much of the Irish support to break a 22-year run without a horse from their homeland winning the race.

The Arthur Moore-trained 11/1 shot failed to improve on that and was chasing the leaders when he blundered at Becher's Brook on the second circuit and unseated Charlie Swan.

The 11 riders making their debut in the race were all on outside chances but included two future winners, Timmy Murphy and Jim Culloty, as well as a quartet of others whose appearances would go into double figures in Richard Johnson, Robert Thornton, Joe Tizzard and David Casey.

The bomb scare overshadowed the final broadcast of lead commentator Peter O'Sullevan, who had called the Grand National for the BBC on radio and then television every year since 1946.