Owned by Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, otherwise known as Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, trained by Peter Cazalet and ridden by Dick Francis, Devon Loch has the distinction of being arguably the unluckiest loser in the history of the Grand National. The world famous steeplechase is often won, or lost, in the last furlong or so, from the famous Elbow, halfway up the 494-yard run-in, to the winning post, but no-one could have predicted what happened in the closing stages of the 1956 renewal, which British Pathé News called “the most sensational Grand National Aintree has ever seen”.

The widely fancied Devon Loch was left in the lead by the fall of Armorial at the twenty-sixth fence and rejoining the racecourse proper had ESB, ridden by Dave Dick, for company. However, having safely negotiated all thirty obstacles and apparently beaten off the challenge of his nearest pursuer, Devon Loch set off up the run-in, with Dick Francis riding with just hands and heels.

A Royal victory looked assured until suddenly, inexplicably, 50 yards from the winning post, Devon Loch pricked his ears, half-jumped into the air and slithered to the ground in an awkward belly flop, with his forelegs out in front of him. Francis wasn’t unseated but, despite his best efforts, could only watch helplessly as ESB streaked past to win by 10 lengths. Devon Loch regained his footing, but almost collapsed again, so Francis dismounted. It’s an iconic image of racing, much in the same way that maradona’s ‘hand of god’ was in football, confounding football predictions for how that match would pan out.

Dick Francis, who died in 2010, aged 89, always maintained that Devon Loch didn’t rear up, or try to jump, but was simply overwhelmed by the wall of noise from the Aintree crowd. He once said, “I’ve looked at the newsreel time and time again and just as we were approaching the water jump, which he jumped on the first circuit, you see the horse prick his ears and his hindquarters just refused to work.”

Another popular theory was that Devon Loch caught sight of the water jump on his left and, in his distressed condition, instinctively took off. The newsreel to which Francis referred does appear to show his front feet leaving the ground at, or around, the take-off point for the water jump, but whether his collapse was caused by cramp, exhaustion, noise, or simply slipping on a muddy patch of ground, non-one will ever really know.

Released in 2021, ‘Dream Horse’ tells the unlikely, but nonetheless true, story of Dream Alliance who, between January 2006 and December 2009, won five races over hurdles and fences for Philip Hobbs, famously including the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow. In 2000, while working as a barmaid in the Top Club in Cefn Forest, near Blackwood, in the South Wales Valleys, Janet ‘Jan’ Vokes overheard local accountant Howard Davies talking about his previous, unsuccessful, foray into racehorse ownership and was inspired to breed a racehorse of her own.

Despite having no previous experience, Jan and her husband, Brian, subsequently acquired the broodmare Rewbell – a thrice-raced maiden under Rules and ‘probably the worst racehorse in Wales’, according to Mr. Vokes – for the knockdown priceof £350. They sent the mare to the former top-class US performer, for a stud fee of £3,000, and the result of the coupling was Dream Alliance, who was born and raised on the Vokes’ allotment, before being put into training with Hobbs, in Withycombe, Somerset, as a three-year-old.

Howard Davies recruited 20 or so local people, each of whom paid £10 a week towards training costs, to form a syndicate known as the ‘Alliance Partnership’ and Dream Alliance duly made his racecourse debut at Newbury in November 2004. He went on to win twice over hurdles and twice over fences, not to mention finishing clear second to impressive winner Denman in the Hennessy Gold Cup, back at Newbury, in December 2007. However, sent back over hurdles at Aintree the following April, he severed a tendon and his owners were forced to reinvest any prize money they had won into life-saving stem cell surgery.

Thankfully, Dream Alliance recovered, but was not seen on a racecourse again until November 2009. The following month, he was sent off at 20/1 for the Welsh Grand National and, under Tom O’Brien, stayed on strongly in the closing stages to win by three-quarters of a length. Reflecting on the rags-to-riches story, Jan Vokes said later, ‘At the time, to us, we were just excited that we managed to breed a horse who would get on the racecourse, never mind do what he did.’

Down the years, Fred Rimmell, Donald ‘Ginger’ McCain and, more recently, Trevor Hemmings have all been nicknamed ‘Mr. Grand National’. In August, 2020, Hemmings announced his decision to reduce the number of horses he had in training, citing the impact of Covid-19 on his personal and business interests. Nevertheless, Hemmings, 85, has already seen his iconic emerald green and yellow quartered colours carried to victory in the Grand National three times, making him, jointly, the most successful owner in the history of the world famous steeplechase.

So far, the octagenarian owner has won the Grand National with Hedgehunter in 2005, Ballabriggs in 2011 and Many Clouds in 2015. Of course, Ballabriggs was trained by Donald McCain Jnr., son of the erstwhile ‘Mr. Grand National’, whom Hemmings had known for years. Hemmings said of McCain Snr., ‘I got on well with Ginger, but he and I would have clashed because he said things he didn’t really mean and he could be bloody-minded.’

Despite a dispersal sale of 56 horses in September, 2020, Hemmings has, by no means, given up on his ambition of owning a record-breaking fourth Grand National winner. In a rare interview in November, 2020, he said, confidently, ‘I will get a fourth [Grand National]; there is no doubt about that.’ He went on to identify Deise Aba and Cloth Cap, fifth and eighth, respectively, in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival, as the two of his horses with the most potential in that respect.

Any Grand National aficionado worth his, or her, salt will delight in telling you that Mon Mome ran in the celebrated steeplechase four times, finishing tenth in 2008, winning, at odds of 100/1, in 2009 and failing to complete the course in both 2010 and 2011. However, even a dyed-in-the-wool ‘anorak’ may have difficulty remembering Marcolo, whose name does not appear on any roll of honour.

In fact, Marcolo ran in the Grand National just once, as an 11-year-old in 1988, when he was sent off rank outsider of the 40 runners at 200/1. Trained by the late Peter Ransom and ridden by a promising amateur rider listed on the racecard as ‘Miss V. Williams’, Marcolo fell at Becher’s Brook on the first circuit, knocking his jockey unconscious in the process. His jockey was, of course, Venetia Williams who, since 1995, has held a training licence at King’s Caple in Herefordshire and saddled over 1,500 winners on British soil, including the aforementioned Mom Mome.

Reflecting on what turned out to be her one and only ride in Grand National, Venetia Williams said, ‘That was the year that Rhyme ‘N’ Reason won, and he virtually went at Becher’s the first time. The next day, the Racing Post had a sequence of pictures on the front page showing him basically doing the splits, and in the background, about half a length behind, you can see my dramatic exit.’

A little over two decades later, by which time she had established herself as one of the leading lights in the training ranks, Venetia Williams returned to Aintree to make amends for her previous mishap. Ridden by the late Liam Treadwell, Mon Mome belied treble-figure odds by drawing clear on the run-in to beat the defending champion Comply Or Die by 12 lengths and give his trainer what she later called ‘the best day of my life’.