Run on good to soft going on March 30, 1985, the 1985 Grand National featured a maximum 40 runners, including the first four home in the 1984 renewal, Hallo Dandy, Greasepaint, Corbiere and Lucky Vane. Hallo Dandy, in the hands of Graham Bradley, deputising for the injured Neale Doughty, unseated rider at the very first fence, while Lucky Vane was pulled up at the fence after Valentine’s Brook on the first circuit. The principal hard-luck story, though, involved West Tip, who was sent off joint-favourite, alongside Greasepaint, but fell, when in the lead and travelling well, at Becher’s Brook on the second circuit.
Corbiere and Greasepaint were among the five horses still in with a realistic chance of winning approaching the final fence, but were preceded by Mr. Snugfit, who went clear at the Elbow, halfway up the run-in. However, inside the final hundred yards, the leader started to send out distress signals. As he did so, Hywel Davies managed to summon a tremendous run from Last Suspect, who had only been fourth jumping the final fence, which carried him past Corbiere and the ailing leader in the closing stages, to win by a length and a half.
Owned by Anne Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster and trained by Tim Forster in Letcombe Bassett, Oxfordshire, Last Suspect had a reputation for mulish behaviour, as he had demonstrated when pulling himself up in his preparatory race for the Grand National, at Warwick. Consequently, at Aintree, with Davies putting up 3lb overweight, the 11-year-old was sent off a largely unconsidered 50/1 chance. Davies later said of him, “He was a careful jumper and had never fallen. He got his blood up the day of the National and just went. I kept him out of traffic on the first circuit and just rode him home on the second circuit.”