There is only one Queen around here.After a tedious parade of interviews with well-lunched faces, including a smiling, relaxed Sir Alex Ferguson (surely an impostor?), it was almost time for The Race itself. Martial fanfares signalled the alert for the BBC’s regular racing team, dotted around various points of the course – Balding in the tense saddling-boxes, Richard Dunwoody in a nervy weighing room, Angus Loughran in a teeming betting-ring – and at last the viewers had something to bite on.The race itself was a triumph for the BBC team and for National Hunt racing too, with all the emotions of a father-and-son pairing and a massive public gamble being served up for a second year running. Barker just about coped with the inevitable Irish occupation of the unsaddling enclosure, prefiguring the mayhem for barmen across Ireland last night. But it is time this great racing occasion had a great racing person to present it to the world. So, if you can lease a horse for the day, why can’t the BBC lease John Francome from Channel 4 next year?. Papillon, a big, moody bay gelding, for once floated like a benign butterfly to win the 153rd Grand National And in the process he stung the bookmakers like a bee. The nine-year-old, trained in Ireland by Ted Walsh, was backed from 33-1 yesterday morning to 10-1 second favourite just before the off and took an estimated £10 million out of the satchels in a wholesale, snowballing gamble on and off the course.

Papillon, a big, moody bay gelding, for once floated like a benign butterfly to win the 153rd Grand National And in the process he stung the bookmakers like a bee. The nine-year-old, trained in Ireland by Ted Walsh, was backed from 33-1 yesterday morning to 10-1 second favourite just before the off and took an estimated £10 million out of the satchels in a wholesale, snowballing gamble on and off the course.
It was a second successive success for Ireland – Bobbyjo ended a 24-year-drought for the raiders last year – and, against considerable odds, a second successive victory for a father-and-son team, with Walsh and his 20-year-old son Ruby filling the roles of Tommy and Paul Carberry – but less extravagantly. Where young Carberry swung from the rafters 12 months ago, Walsh jnr, his country’s champion jockey last season, dismounted in conventional fashion.The drying ground at Aintree was one key to Papillon. The other was whether the horse, an individual of moods, would decide that the unique course was to his liking. It was soon clear that the big spruce had been given the thumbs-up. With his jockey a willing partner in his first National, giving him a proper young man’s ride close to the pace down the inside the whole way, Papillon gave an exhilarating display.Carrying the green colours of his American owner, Betty Moran, he was never worse than sixth as Star Traveller and Esprit De Cotte cut out the pace during the phoney war of the first circuit.

The bay head with the casually flicking ears showed in front for the first time at the Canal Turn second time round and though he was headed first by his compatriot Lucky Town and later by the eventual runner-up, Mely Moss, he showed considerable determination under pressure to win pretty cosily.On the run from the last fence he repelled Mely Moss’s persistent presence to take the £290,000 prize by a length and a quarter. Niki Dee stayed on late to take third spot, 12 lengths behind, with the Aintree veteran Brave Highlander a most honourable fourth in front of Addington Boy, Call It A Day and The Last Fling. Bobbyjo, who made a horrendous mistake at the smallest fence, came in 11th of the 17 finishers.”Papillon jumped absolutely super,” said Walsh in the time-honoured, but absolutely sincere, tribute to his partner. “He was maybe a bit low over the first two, but he’s some jumper. He was a bit keen,but I didn’t fight him, and he settled into a rhythm.”At the second last, Norman [Williamson, on Mely Moss] went past me I gave mine a slap and away he went again I couldn’t believe it after four miles. The other horse stuck to him, though, I thought for a moment I wouldn’t shake him off. He was a thorn in my side but my fellow kept going well.”The Grand National, oddly, does not always go to the courageous; Rag Trade, who beat Red Rum, was a big soft coward of a horse, and Last Suspect was distinctly windy.