1998 Grand National – Full Finishing Results
Date: 4 April 1998
Course: Aintree Racecourse
Going: Soft
Distance: 4 miles 4 furlongs 856 yards
Runners: 37
Finishers: 6
Winning Time: 10 minutes 51.5 seconds
| Position | Horse | Jockey | Trainer | Owner | Age | Weight | SP | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Earth Summit | Carl Llewellyn | Nigel Twiston-Davies | The Summit Partnership | 10 | 10-05 | 7/1 F | Won by 11 lengths |
| 2nd | Suny Bay | Graham Bradley | Charlie Brooks | Toby Balding | 10 | 11-10 | 11/1 | 11 lengths behind |
| 3rd | Samuels Pride | Chris Maude | John Edwards | M. L. James | 11 | 10-00 | 100/1 | 5 lengths behind |
| 4th | St Mellion Fairway | Jamie Osborne | Josh Gifford | Mrs. M. Gifford | 10 | 10-02 | 50/1 | 3 lengths behind |
| 5th | Chinrullah (IRE) | Charlie Swan | Arthur Moore | J. Cullen | 9 | 10-00 | 33/1 | 10 lengths behind |
| 6th | General Chandos | Peter Niven | Mary Reveley | H. Jones | 11 | 10-00 | 66/1 | Last finisher |
Race Summary
- Winner: Earth Summit (trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies, ridden by Carl Llewellyn)
- Winning Margin: 11 lengths over Suny Bay
- Favourite: Earth Summit (7/1) – won
- Prize for 1st Place: £189,180
- Notable: Earth Summit became the first horse ever to win the Scottish, Welsh, and Aintree Grand Nationals.
The 1998 Grand National, run on heavy going on April 4, 1988, featured 37 runners, of which just six completed the course and three – Pashto, Do Rightly and Griffins Bar – were fatally injured early on the first circuit. An attritional renewal was won by the 7/1 favourite Earth Summit, trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies and ridden by Carl Llewellyn, who was completing a notable career treble insofar as he had already won the Scottish Grand National at Ayr in 1994 and the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow the previous December.
Llewellyn, who was deputising for the injured Tom Jenks, always had the 10-year-old in a handy position and, having taken the lead five fences from home, asked his mount for maximum effort approaching the final fence. The further they went, the further they went away from the topweight Suny Bay, ridden by Graham Bradley – who was, in his defence, conceding 23lb to the winner – and eventually passed the post 11 lengths to the good. Suny Bay plugged on to finish second, a distance ahead of the third horse home, Samlee, with St. Mellion Fairway close behind in fourth place. Reflecting on his good fortune, Llewellyn said afterwards, “I’m a bit of a jammy git;Tom Jenks should have ridden him.”
Not altogether surprisingly, granted the underfoot conditions, the winning time, of 10 minutes and 51.5 seconds, was the slowest since 1883, when just 10 horses came under starters’ orders on similarly heavy going. However, they say time only matters if you’re doing it, and Twiston-Davies later said of Earth Summit, “He was a very good horse, who has certainly done us proud. He won the three different Nationals, which no other horse has done and hopefully he’ll keep us in the record books for some time.”