Grand National
The Grand National is a famous National Hunt horse race which is held at Aintree in England. It is a handicap chase run over a distance of about 4 miles and 856 yards (approximately 7¼ km), and during its running there are thirty fences to be jumped. It is presently scheduled to take place each year on a Saturday afternoon in early April.
It is the most valuable National Hunt event in Great Britain, and in 2009 it offered a total prize fund of £900,000. The race is popular amongst many people who do not normally watch or bet on horse racing at other times of the year. It is also one of the most controversial, due to the injuries and fatalities suffered by participating horses. This makes it a target for animal rights groups, which have campaigned to have it banned. In one hundred and sixty-two runnings of the race there have been eighty officially recorded equine fatalities, four of which came in one year, 1954.
The race is run over two circuits of Aintree’s National Course, which is triangular in shape and on which there are sixteen fences. All, except The Chair and the Water-Jump, are jumped twice. Some fences are notorious for their severity, particularly Becher’s Brook and The Chair, although in recent years this severity has been much reduced due to pressure from various animal rights groups. The Grand National is the centrepiece of a three-day meeting, one of only four run at Aintree in the racing season.
It is one of ten events reserved for live broadcast on UK terrestrial television under the ITC Code on Sports and Other Listed Events. It is estimated that the Grand National is watched worldwide by over 600 million viewers.
From a betting perspective, the Grand National forms the second leg of the Spring Double – the first leg is the Lincoln Handicap.
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