VENETIA Williams climbed on a table and announced to the 300 people gathered on her picturesque front lawn in Herefordshire that they were all in for a special treat.

John Smith’s Grand National winner Mon Mome was led away from the garden and moments later Williams’ great friend John Gordon roared overhead, dipping the Union Jack-emblazoned wings of his single-engined aeroplane to welcome home the winning connections of the Aintree spectacular.

“It is quite wonderful,”

Williams had said to the assembled crowd. “In two or three minutes a good friend of mine will do a low fly-past, a loop-the-loop and a victory salute for us.

“I would like to thank you all so much for coming, and this has been just a day in a lifetime for me, Liam (jockey, Treadwell) and everyone that works here.

“Days like this give me a chance to say thank you to everyone, and let’s hear three cheers for Mon Mome.”

After just two hours’ sleep, Williams was remarkably fresh and perky as she opened her stable gates to celebrate Mon Mome’s shock 100-1 victory on Merseyside.

Not since Foinavon benefited from a mass pile-up at the fence which now bears his name in 1967 had there been such a big-priced winner of the race, while Williams joined Jenny Pitman as just the second female trainer to lift the huge trophy.

“It makes me feel proud to win the Grand National, but I am not sure the male and female thing is so much of an issue if you are training them rather than riding them,” she added.

“We would all love to train Gold Cup winners and Grade One winners at the Cheltenham Festival, but the Grand National is the race which is known the world over so we are absolutely ecstatic.

“I got back about 9pm from Aintree and we all went down to the pub, where all the staff were. I had a great time there and went on to some great friends afterwards.

“It was quite late, or should I saw early this morning, when I got to bed and I have never got up so unnecessarily early on a Sunday morning!

“Shirley, Martin and Sarah in my office were on the phone to all the owners and friends seconds after Mon Mome passed the post to tell them about the party.

“I think Shirley even went into the local village and was knocking on the doors of people who didn’t even know the Grand National was on to tell them to come to the party.

“The villagers have to put up with us taking horses round the roads when they are trying to get to work and take the kids to school, so it is great to thank them.”

Williams’ career in the saddle ended days after she took a crashing fall at Becher’s Brook in the 1988 National, and her Ross-on-Wye yard has come a long way since her first winner as a trainer in late 1995.

Six boxes have risen to 100, and Mon Mome pushed the trainer through the £1m prizemoney mark for the first time.

Her father looked on at proceedings at Williams’ grandmother’s family home as Mon Mome was paraded back and forth.