1854: Hot favourite Miss Mowbray is 'got at' and has to be withdrawn shortly before the race.
1885: The 5-1 second favourite and 1883 winner Zoedone is injected with poison shortly before leaving the paddock. She eventually falls on the second circuit when well adrift.
1917: In a wartime substitute National at Gatwick, Limerock has the race won only to collapse and fall within yards of the finishing line.
1921: Turkey Buzzard's owner chases jockey Captain Harbord Bennet round the paddock with her umbrella as she feels he has subjected the horse to unnecessary hardship after remounting three times.
1928: 100-1 shot Tipperary Tim is the only horse to put in a clear round as each of his 41 rivals comes to grief.
1948: Zahia is going strongly in third place when her jockey takes the wrong course and misses out the final fence.
1951: No fewer than 29 of the 36 runners crash out before the field are halfway round the first circuit. Only three eventually complete the course.
1952: Radio coverage of the race is reduced to farce as Mirabel Topham and her friends insist on providing the commentary themselves following a copyright dispute with the BBC. The novice race-callers announce that Teal has fallen at the first fence. In fact the heavily-backed favourite goes on to win the race.
1956: Devon Loch appears set to gain a popular success for the Queen Mother only to spreadeagle, inexplicably, on the run-in and allow ESB to collect the prize.
1964: The imminent closure of Aintree is announced as the track is set to be sold for property development. The 1965 National is set to be the last. Thus starts a near 20-year wrangle which eventually ends with the purchase of the course by the Jockey Club, part-financed by public donations.
1967: Chaos at the 23rd fence as a loose horse brings virtually the whole field to a standstill. 100-1 shot Foinavon escapes the melee and goes on to spring the biggest surprise in modern National history.
1993: The great race is abandoned after two false starts. The recall system fails and many of the runners complete two circuits of the track, with Esha Ness the winner of 'the race that never was'.
1997: The National is postponed due to a security alert which forces the evacuation of Aintree. It is eventually run two days late on a Monday afternoon and is won by Lord Gyllene.
2001: Only two horses put in clear rounds on very testing ground after incessant rain turns the ground into a quagmire. The Aintree executive is branded "reckless" by some quarters of the Press for allowing the race to go ahead.
2006: The spectre of a false start to the National rears its ugly head once more and prompts booing from the stands, although thankfully the runners are recalled quickly and there is no repeat of 1993.
2007: An embarrassing delay of eight minutes to the start puts the race in the headlines for the wrong reasons once again. Debates rage as to who is at fault, with starter Peter Haynes blaming the jockeys for failing to obey his instructions. Haynes is later to be replaced by Sean McDonald.
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