1997 Grand National

The 1997 Grand National (known officially as the Martell Grand National and also informally as the Monday National) was the 150th official running of the Grand National steeplechase held at Aintree near Liverpool. The race was scheduled to be run on Saturday 5 April 1997, but was postponed by two days to Monday 7 April after a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb threat forced the evacuation of the course.

The race was won in a time of nine minutes and 5.9 seconds and by a distance of 25 lengths by New Zealand-bred Lord Gyllene at odds of 14/1. 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. Brookshaw collected £178,146 of a total prize fund of £303,300 shared through the first six finishers. There were two equine fatalities during the race.

The race was originally scheduled to be run on Saturday 5 April at 3:45 pm. However, at 2:49 pm, a bomb threat was made via telephone to Aintree University Hospital in Fazakerley, with a second made three minutes later via telephone to the police's control room in Bootle. Both used recognised codewords of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). At least one device was warned to have been planted within Aintree Racecourse. This was one of several IRA threats in the lead up to the 1997 UK general election.^{[citation needed]}

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. Initially, spectators were evacuated from the stands onto the course itself but after consultation with the police, course clerk Charles Barnett advised via the live broadcast that everyone would have to leave the course completely. This prompted tabloid headlines such as "We'll fight them on the Becher's", in reference to Winston Churchill's war-time speech "We shall fight on the beaches".

Most of the competing horses either travelled home or were moved to nearby Haydock. A dozen remained in the stables at Aintree.

At 4:14 pm, the police carried out two controlled explosions at 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. In a retrospective item broadcast during ITV's coverage of the 2017 Grand National, it was revealed that another bomb threat was made on Monday. However, Merseyside Police were confident that the threat was a hoax and the race went ahead without disruption. Former Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, Sir Paul Stephenson, believed a bomb was never planted at Aintree Racecourse.

Go Ballistic was made favourite after finishing fourth in the Cheltenham Gold Cup three weeks before the National. 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. Fitzgerald was one of many riders unable to make the allocated weight after the two-day delay and weighed out at 10 stone and 3 lb. 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.

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. Although the pairing remained intact, Suny Bay was unable get on terms with the winner and finished a well-beaten second.