Davy Russell, the oldest jockey in the race, capped a magnificent riding career when he rode Tiger Roll, one of the most accomplished little horses of the last few years, to a dramatic last- gasp victory in the 171st Randox Health Grand National.

Tiger Roll was a second National winner in three years for Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, and a second for trainer Gordon Elliott who won it with Silver Birch in 2007 before he had ever saddled a winner in Ireland.

But both men and Russell had to wait for a photo-finish to confirm that their horse, number 13, had triumphed in the world’s greatest race by a fast diminishing head.

The eight-year-old, who has won the Triumph Hurdle, National Hunt Chase and Cross-Country at the Cheltenham Festival, swept past the gallant runner-up Pleasant Company with such ease under Russell at the last, with the jockey merely riding him out with hands and heels, that he was six lengths clear at the Elbow with a furlong to run.

Had you stopped the race there, Tiger Roll would have been one of the race’s most comfortable winners of recent times. But Aintree’s famously long run-in, so often the undoing of horses that have led over the last, had one more twist in store when, 150 yards from the line, Tiger Roll began to tire while, from somewhere, Pleasant Company found a second wind and, scenting victory, began to fly.