Blast From The Past: Irish Grand National

It’s not often that the Irish Grand National winner takes high rank among the season’s chasers but that was very much the case in 1994/95 when the winner was the top-class ten-year-old Flashing Steel. He earned a rating of 169 in Chasers & Hurdlers that season which put him behind only Gold Cup winner Master Oats (183), Mackeson winner Bradbury Star (172?), Barton Bank (172x), who would have won his second King George but for falling at the last, and Merry Gale (170), winner of the Martell Cup at Aintree, among the top chasers in Britain and Ireland.

In fact, on his last start before the 1995 Irish National, Flashing Steel had come up against Master Oats, Barton Bank and Merry Gale in the Gold Cup but was already beginning to labour when falling heavily seven fences from home. He had run a better race in the same contest the previous season when fourth to The Fellow. The 1995 Gold Cup was run on soft ground, but the going was more in his favour – good - at Fairyhouse for the following month’s Irish Grand National in which Flashing Steel carried top weight of 12-0.

Despite his big weight and his mishap in the Gold Cup, Flashing Steel was well supported to beat his seventeen rivals, being backed down from 12/1 to 9/1. The 11/2 favourite was Mr Boston, one of two British-trained runners in the field, who had won a handicap at Sandown on his most recent start for Mary Reveley. Like this year, the 1995 Irish Grand National came just nine days after the Grand National at Aintree but that didn’t stop four who had run at Aintree from running in the Irish National too. Among that quartet was the mare Ebony Jane, winner of the Irish Grand National in 1993, and who, in 1994, had contested both Nationals that year too, finishing third at Fairyhouse and fourth at Aintree just five days later.

The 1995 Irish National was an eventful contest as Chasers & Hurdlers related:

‘The latest running was what the newspapers are wont to call ‘incident-packed’ or ‘grief-stricken’. Jassu fell at the first fence bringing down The Committee; Nuaffe made a bad mistake and was also severely hampered there; Belmont King went at the second, the joint-second favourite Sullane River at the fifth, the favourite Mr Boston at four out when still close up but looking to be coming under pressure; and some of the loose horses, Belmont King and Sullane River in particular, continued in the race, causing problems.

‘Flashing Steel managed to avoid the worst of the trouble, always handy on the inside. However, from three out until close home he looked as if he would come no higher than second. Rust Never Sleeps [in receipt of two stone] began to get away from him and the rest after that fence, was clear after the next and held on to the lead until Flashing Steel produced a very game rally under strong riding to pull him back on the flat and win by half a length.’

Ridden by Jamie Osborne and trained by John Mulhern, Flashing Steel carried the colours of the former Taioseach Charles Haughey. He carried 12-0 in the following season’s Irish Grand National too, when pulled up, and he ended his career running in hunter chases, finishing third as a thirteen-year-old in the Foxhunter at the Cheltenham Festival.