Bobbyjo stopped Ireland going 25 years without a Grand National winner - what an incredible difference now

It's hard to credit that 25 years have passed since Paul Carberry's daring dart around the inside of Aintree's fearsome old Grand National course to seize a famous victory on Bobbyjo. 

Epochal might be the best word for that moment. There has been much navel-gazing and brain-racking over the pervasive Irish influence at the Cheltenham Festival, but the National has arguably illustrated the remarkable flip-flopping of Anglo-Irish fortunes on the jumps scene in an even more stark sense. 

When Tommy Carberry sent Bobbyjo across to Liverpool in 1999, all of 24 years had passed since he rode L'Escargot to victory for his father-in-law Dan Moore. Irish-based horses just couldn't compete. They had won Champion Hurdles and Gold Cups in the interim but the National was a complete shut-out.