What starts out as a list of about 150 horses slowly gets whittled down over a period of about three months so that only 40 worthy contenders remain. It is these wonderful horses that slog it out over more than four miles of Aintree racetrack in a bid to earn one of the most coveted sporting titles � The Grand National Winner.
The English Grand National is considered one of the biggest sporting events in the United Kingdom alongside the F.A. Cup, The All English Tennis Championship (Wimbledon) and the Ashes Test Series. Because of this status the Grand National has been added to the list of government Protected Sport Events these events must be shown on terrestrial T.V. channels and the broadcast rights cannot be sold domestically to Satellite broadcasters like Sky, Setanta Or Cable Channels.
There have been 161 memorable winners who now adorn the history books and as the 2009 Aintree Grand National draws ever closer it is only fitting that we take a look back at the trailblazers that have made this one of the greatest races anywhere in the world.
1839 saw the first ever Grand National and its inaugural winner was the aptly named �Lottery�. Weighing in at a reasonable 9 12 and ridden by Gem Mason this beauty was one of the favourites at 5/1 and, rather unsurprisingly, took the longest of any winning horse to complete the course at 14m 53s. It would appear that slow and steady wins the race!
There have been a number of horses that have won the Grand National twice and they include �Peter Simple� in 1849 and 1853, �The Colonel� in 1869 and 1870, �The Lamb� in 1868 and 1871, �Manifesto� in 1897 and 1899 and finally �Reynoldstown� in both 1935 and 1936.
Despite the successes of the above horses, only one has ever one it three times and that unique honour goes to the one and only �Red Rum�. The greatest Grand National horse of all time, Red Rum, bred to be a sprinter, left the breeding experts scratching their heads by becoming the only three time winner in the history of the race. And if that wasn�t enough he was also second in 1975 and 1976.
So from the first ever horse to win to the latest horse to take the title, �Comply or Die� rode home a joint favourite at 7/1 in the 2008 Grand National. This Irish horse and his jockey, Timmy Murphy, held off a strong challenge from �King Johns Castle� to take victory by four lengths giving his trainer, David Pipe, and his owner, David Johnson, one of the most memorable days of their lives!
The race has also featured in a number of movies, the best known being the 1944 movie National Velvet a fictional account of a young girl disguising herself as a male jockey to get a ride in the race, at that time women jockeys were not allowed to enter the National the part was played by Liz Taylor, who once quipped that her best leading man was a Horse! Today women jockeys are allowed to enter, the best finish by a woman in the race was in 1994 when Rosemary Henderson came 5th.
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