Run on heavy going, on April 8, 1989, the 1989 Grand National featured a maximum 40 runners, including Dixton House, trained by John Edwards, who had won the Ritz Club National Hunt Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival on his previous start and was sent off 7/1 favourite. However, the market-leader parted with jockey Tom Morgan at Becher’s Brook on the first circuit and the result of the race was overshadowed by fatal injuries suffered by two other horses at the same fence.Seeandem and Brown Trix were humanely euthanised after an incident that resulted in widespread criticism of the BBC, for its coverage and insensitive commentary, and further safety changes, including levelling the landing side of the fence and filling in Becher’s Brook itself.
In a strange twist of irony, victory went to the 12-year-old Little Polveir who, until six weeks previously, had been trained by John Edwards, but had been transferred to Toby Balding after being bought by Edward Harvey for his son, David, in the Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown Park in March. Having unseated the aforementioned Tom Morgan at the fourth-last fence in the 1988 Grand National, when in the lead, Little Polveir was widely considered past his best, but nonetheless made his fourth appearance in the world-famous steeplechase a winning one.
Ridden by Jimmy Frost – father of Bryony – and sent off at 28/1, Little Polveir led over the water jump at the end of the first circuit and, ultimately, ran on well on the run-in to beat the 1986 winner, West Tip, also a 12-year-old, by seven lengths. The 1987 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, The Thinker, finished a running-on third, a further half a length away and, all told, 14 of the 40 starters completed the course. Jimmy Frost said later, “It was a day that changed my life, an unexpected one at that.”