It's 10 years since Banna Strand jumped a fence into a crowd of spectators leaving seven injured, including two children.

The mayhem and chaos came amid a vocal campaign to ban jumps racing and it forced Warrnambool Racing Club to make a number of changes to ensure safety for spectators, jockeys and horses.

The incident led news bulletins around the country and hit the front pages of metropolitan papers.

For many though, looking back, it was the start of a fairytale story for a horse who cemented his name in the 149-year-old race's history.

After the drama of 2011 it was impossible to imagine the New Zealand "plodder" would come back and win the iconic race two years later.

Thalia Gore was 21 at the time of the 2011 incident and lived on Tozer Road.

"My aunty lived on the corner and would always invite as many people from the crowd as possible up to her front lawn," the now Queenslander said.

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Ms Gore said she and her dad were standing on his ute at the fence.

"As the horses hit the first steeple crossing into our paddock the jockey fell off and the horse began running down the fence line," she said. "My dad was trying to wave it back into the pack, he said 'this isn't going to be good, Thalia don't look.'

"He screamed to the crowd and the horse just jumped the fence, cleared the police car on the other side and landed in the crowd."

Ms Gore said they immediately went to help those who'd been hurt with her step mother who had been a nurse.

"People were screaming," she said.

"My dad grabbed kids and moved them into my aunty's property.

"The horse ran up Tozer Road continuing to run people down and it was then stopped on McGregor's Road."

She said a jumps racing protester was filming people and her father told him to help those who'd been injured.

She said jumps racing wasn't something she was interested in and instead the May races were a chance to catch up with family.

"It was about the gathering, not the racing for me," she said.

Former The Standard photographer Angela Milne estimated she covered 17 May Racing Carnivals during her time at the newspaper.

Each year she would position herself at the Tozer Road jump for the Grand Annual.

"So I would always do that double jump, they have to turn left the first time and then when they come down the hill again they turn right and head to the finishing line," she said.

"That jump was always an exciting jump because it's two jumps from the end.

"I can remember them coming over the Brierly jumps and I just remember that one horse didn't follow the pack.

"He went to the side and he must have mistaken the fence for a jump.

"Because the fence was really high, we saw that one horse veer up the top of the hill but I couldn't see it as it came closer because the fence was so high.

"Then it was just all of the screams.

"I was concentrating on photographing the pack and then when I heard the screams I realised the horse had jumped the wrong fence.

"I did think people would be really badly hurt because the horses are so strong when they jump over the fences at force.

"I just remember the amount of people standing there and everyone was screaming, they were waiting for the ambulances.

"I remember the horse running off down Tozer Road."

Ms Milne said covering the carnival always meant big days with plenty of action to photograph.

"It was always an exciting time, you were in the public eye all week and you had a job to do and you just did it," she said.

"It was the main event in Warrnambool and everyone wanted to see the photos the next day."

For Waymouth he can remember clearly sitting in the ambulance after falling from Banna Strand and hearing a horse had jumped a two-metre high fence into the crowd.

"He was my first ride (in the Grand Annual)," he said.

"He was jumping really good.

"We came to the one on Tozer Road and the horse in front of me fell. The horse was on the ground and (jockey) Tommy Logan was on the ground.

"I tried to go around Tommy and as he rolled, his arm has come up so Banna Strand jumped the horse and the horse flipped us.

"Instead of jumping Tommy he tried to jump the horse and the horse got up and flipped us over.

"Then me and Tommy were in the ambulance and the ambulance officer said one of the horses had jumped into the crowd, I looked at Tommy and I said 'I bet that's my horse' because he had one of the greatest jumps.

"I'd ridden him two weeks before at Oakbank and he was a beautiful jumper.

"I remember every jumps ride I ever had but that was pretty remarkable. When you see the photos of how he did it."

In that history-making race in 2013 when Banna Strand made a triumphant return to win the Grand Annual, Waymouth said Banna Strand "looked out and out, he looked like he was going to run a distant third and he was just a big plodder".

"He wasn't blessed with the most ability, he was just a good out and out stayer.

"He was beautiful."

Former premier and South West Coast MP Denis Napthine was racing minister at the time and had just won an election with jumps racing a prominent issue.

On the day of the race Dr Napthine was in parliament and quickly heard about the incident.

"I was well and truly on the record for supporting jumps racing and the May carnival because in the lead up to the 2010 election there was a fair push from the then-Minister for Racing Rob Hulls and the Labor Party to get rid of jumps racing," he said.

"We immediately looked at, as Minister for Racing, doing a review," he said.

"Obviously the safety of patrons was the highest priority and there were some issues that Warrnambool Racing Club had to implement as a result of that review and we did the same on race tracks, wherever jumps racing was held, to make sure it was absolutely safe and indeed for flat racing."

Dr Napthine said there was always drama and a sense of history being created at the carnival.

"Whether it's a jockey who has struggled and wins a big race, or a struggling trainer who picks up a horse for next to nothing and wins a race with it," he said.

"It gives the people who are in racing just for the love of the game, whether they've got two bob to rub together or the owner of Midfield Meats - they're equal when it comes to jumps racing.

"The thing that struck me particularly about Banna Strand's jump was that he lost the tribe and he was trying to follow the other horses and the other horses turned and came down the hill and he tried to cut the corner to catch up with them.

"And he made an almighty leap at that fence.

"The most amazing thing to me that as a vet you could see, when you saw the close up when the horse jumped the fence and saw the people on the other side, you could see his eyes look left and right and he actually tried to land by causing minimum damage to the spectators.

"To top it all off, two years later Banna Strand comes back and wins the Grand Annual.

"He was a fantastic horse, he was trained in New Zealand jumping logs and jumping all sorts of things, there was not a fence that he wasn't game to tackle.

"The longer the distance the better and he loved jumping.

"He was a genuine tough New Zealand jumper who liked doing the job.

"You couldn't script it better, you'd say it's a fairy tale."

Banna Strand died in New Zealand from a twisted bowel just two months after winning the Grand Annual.

Warrnambool Racing Club chair Nick Rule said the Grand Annual was a race that brought people from around Australia to Warrnambool.

"It's one of those races where something is always going to happen," he said.

"You knew that something had gone kind of a miss and it often does at that corner, horses can go the wrong way, they have to go left and then right again.

"It's always an area of the track where something exciting is going to happen.

"It is one of the great races on the Australian racing calendar, it's 5500 metres, its 33 jumps, up hill and down hill. There's no race like it.

"We can provide all the hospitality and whatever you like but at the end of the day it's the race that really captures people's imagination."