Tradition upheld when it mattered

IT WAS different, disjointed and occasionally absurd but it worked. A one race Monday was always going to produce a sense of dislocation but the presence of a 20,000 strong crowd testified to a determination to make this most unusual Grand National of all, work.

That determination and defiance manifested itself in many ways. There was something faintly silly about a company of Gurkhas, men from the highlands of Nepal, playing bagpipes to entertain the crowd but when one sole baleful piper played Amazing Grace just before the jockeys left the weighroom to mount, it was illogically moving.

It helped to ease earlier fears that the day would fizzle into a nonentity. Those fears had been genuine. "After all the build up to Saturday, this could end up feeling like an ordinary day at Tramore," said trainer Pat Fahy, who had Nuaffe in the big race, hours before the start.

He wasn't alone. Peter O'Sulleven, who had feared the race would never be re scheduled, said: "I think there will be a less charismatic atmosphere and that certain drama that has always been associated with the race will be dissipated."

However, precisely because the day was so unusual, it worked. Because of all the tension about another possible scare, the race itself seemed to take on a lighthearted jollity that isn't always possible. The atmosphere was different but a totally positive one. Nowhere was that more evident than in the jockeys' room where nerves are usually as taut as piano wire and laughter is usually the preserve of those whose faces don't crack into a grin from one National to the next.

Graham Bradley stood outside that room minutes before he left to ride Lo Stregone but he looked back into it with incredulity when asked if he was tense. "I think there's more of a buzz in there now than there normally is. The guys are psyched up for it but there is absolutely no tension. Everyone's laughing and joking and the only worry for most of them is losing the few pounds they put on over the weekend," Bradley considered.

The race itself provided, as it always seems to, the sort of drama that provokes such strong emotions about it from so many people. Falls, dramatics, aspiring courage from horses and riders and an entirely appropriate winner, maintained the Grand National's best traditions and did it when it counted most. Such a statement is not an exaggeration.

Nobody appreciates those traditions more than Peter O'Sulleven, who raised a huge cheer from the enthusiastic crowd when given an award to commemorate his 50th commentary on the race.

O'Sulleven's earlier pessimism was blown away in a tide of resilient, good humoured determination that logic would not apply. It's a tide that the Grand National has always em and it rose again yesterday.