Venetia Williams climbed on a table and announced to the 300 people gathered on 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 (Treadwell, the jockey) 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."

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.

Her father looked on at proceedings at Williams' grandmother's family home as Mon Mome was paraded back and forth – looking "amazing" according to his trainer.

She continued: "I thought he would run well, and that if he was in the first six it would be fantastic. He did a fantastic Canal Turn and the plan had always been to go around the inside.

"I said to Liam one thing you want is daylight in front of you, as daylight is gold dust in a race like this.

"He was up the front and in a matter of a few strides he was four lengths clear. Going to the post he was going further and further away and pricking his ears - it was extraordinary."

That it was, as the nine-year-old raced away from big-name rivals Comply Or Die, My Will and State Of Play.