It remains now the only sub nine-minute National, smashing Red Rum's previous record from 1973 by some 14 seconds, even though the race has been shortened since 2013.
Armytage was the last amateur rider to win the race until 2022, when Sam Waley-Cohen won on Noble Yeats.
[2] Mr Frisk and Armytage went on to complete the unique National-Whitbread Gold Cup double at Sandown Park Racecourse three weeks later.
In 1992 he repeated a feat achieved by his sister Gee in 1987 by riding a double at the Cheltenham Festival, winning the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup on Tug of Gold and National Hunt Chase Challenge Cup on Keep Talking.
He went on to attend the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, (irregularly) before graduating with a diploma in Rural Estate Management.