The Grand National, it's known as the 'World's Greatest Steeplechase' and is also known as 'the day the nation goes racing', every year nearly 40 horses have run four and a half miles and have jumped thirty fences in the hopes of one of jump racing's best prizes. The Grand National has been run over 184 years and over the last few decades the Grand National has seen it all from the double winners, Red Rum and Tiger Roll, to the dramatic day that the whole meeting was abandoned and the race run on a Monday afternoon.
This is the history of the Grand National.
The Grand National on record has been run since 1839 at Aintree racecourse in Liverpool and at the start of April every year has been a tradition.
it is run at 5:15 every year.
The first year of the grand national took place in 1839, the first ever race was won by Lottery with the second ever winner being Jerry in 1840
If this race wanted to thank one horse for saving it, the name would be Red Rum.
This great horse had won the race 3 times, the only horse to have won the race 3 times. Red Rum won the race back to back in nineteen seventy three and seventy four, he then took two years out of the race until he returned in nineteen seventy seven and won the race.
Red Rum is now apart of Aintree as when he died the horse was buried near the winning post.
The 1997 race ended in infamy, on the Saturday spectators were ready for quite an emotional day. It wasn't just that the race was being run. It was also the final race call that legendary BBC Racing commentator Peter O Sullivan would call on this great race.
However a few minutes prior to the race being run, the police received a phone call regarding a bomb on the course. The entire course was evacuated and the meeting on the Saturday was abandoned. The race would then be run on Monday the 7th April with the winner being Lord Gyllene
The 2012 running of the race was one of the closest, with the race ending in a photo finish win by a short head being Neptune's Cologne, this was also the last Grand National to be broadcast on BBC Television, BBC Radio would still broadcast the race every year.
2021's Grand National is a race which was etched into history, it was the first race ever won by a female jockey.
Rachel Blackmore, who was coming off one of her greatest Cheltenham Festivals ever, rode Millena Times to victory and became a history maker.
Inages
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"Aintree Grand National 2013" by stacey.cavanagh is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
By Carine06 - Flickr: Neptune Collonges, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25886650
By JockeyColours, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31753045
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