Summary
The Grand National is a steeplechase over four and a quarter miles and thirty fences, twice around Aintree, and the hardest race in the calendar to win. Six fences carry names the racing world has known for 150 years, with Becher's Brook the most feared. But it is as often decided on the long flat run-in after the last, where leaders fold and 100/1 outsiders come through.
The Grand National is the hardest race in the world to win and one of the easiest to enjoy watching. Up to forty horses, thirty-four since 2024, set off over four and a quarter miles and thirty fences, twice around Aintree, and most of them will not finish. It has been run since 1839, and it is still the one race of the year that people who never watch racing stop everything to see.
If you have been invited and have never followed it, do not worry about the form. The National is a spectacle first: the size of the fences, the size of the field, the names built up over nearly two centuries. Learn a handful of those fences, and where the race is actually won, and you can follow it like someone who has watched for years.
How the race works
It is a steeplechase of four miles, two furlongs and 74 yards, a shade over four and a quarter miles, run left-handed over two laps of Aintree. There are sixteen separate fences: fourteen are jumped on both laps and two only on the first, which is where the famous total of thirty fences comes from. They are built from a wooden frame packed with spruce, and were made less severe in 1961 and again after 1990. The field was capped at forty for decades and cut to thirty-four from 2024, part of a wider safety overhaul. The race is run on the Saturday of the three-day festival, in early April.
The fences that matter
- Becher's BrookFences 6 and 22. The most feared jump in racing. The ground falls away on landing, lower than the take-off, and has caught out riders since Captain Becher fell here in the very first National in 1839.
- FoinavonFences 7 and 23. The smallest fence on the course, and the scene of the most famous accident in the race, which gave it its name.
- Canal TurnFences 8 and 24. An almost ninety-degree left turn the moment you land. Jockeys angle their horses in mid-air; the ones who read it gain a dozen places.
- Valentine's BrookFences 9 and 25. Named after a horse called Valentine, said to have jumped it hind legs first in 1840 and somehow stayed up. He finished third.
- The ChairFence 15, first lap only. The tallest on the course at five feet two, with a six-foot ditch in front and the grandstand right behind. The one the cameras love.
- The Water JumpFence 16, first lap only. Low, wide and splashy, taken in front of the stands. More show than danger.
Becher, for the record, sheltered in the brook as the field thundered over, and later remarked that the water tasted considerably worse without brandy in it.
Foinavon: the 100/1 miracle
The Foinavon fence is the smallest on the course, and named after the unlikeliest winner in the race's history. On 8 April 1967 a loose horse ran across the leaders at the 23rd, and in seconds almost the entire field was piled up, baulked or refusing. Foinavon was so far back that by the time he reached the fence the chaos had cleared. His jockey, John Buckingham, picked a way through, jumped it cleanly and kept going. He won at 100/1, one of the longest-priced winners in racing, and Aintree named the fence after him in 1984.
The run-in: where it's won and lost
The cruelty of the National is at the end, not in the fences. From the last jump to the line is nearly five hundred yards of flat grass, with a slight dogleg called the Elbow about halfway. A horse that leads over the last can empty completely on that run, and a fitter one behind has room to come and take it. The most famous example is the saddest: in 1956 the Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, was clear and cruising to the line when he inexplicably collapsed flat on the grass, yards from winning. Nobody has ever fully explained it.
The horses that made it
One horse owns the race. Red Rum won it three times, in 1973, 1974 and 1977, and finished second in the two years between; his statue stands at Aintree and nothing has come near the record since. Tiger Roll took back-to-back Nationals in 2018 and 2019, the first to do it since Red Rum. And in 1981 Aldaniti won with Bob Champion riding, the jockey back from cancer and the horse back from a career-threatening leg injury, a story improbable enough that they made a film of it. The long-priced winners have their own legend: Foinavon, and more recently Mon Mome, both at 100/1.
Where to watch from
If you are there in person, every fence offers a different day. The Canal Turn is the place to see jockeys actually working, angling their horses left in the air. The Chair, in front of the grandstand, is where the photographs happen. Becher's Brook draws the loudest noise of the afternoon. And the run-in, from the Elbow to the post, is where you want to be standing if the finish is close, which at the National it usually is. Where exactly you watch from, and how comfortably, is the part we arrange.
Sian Jones
Sport Events Operations Manager
Sport Events Operations Manager at Imperial Corporate Events. She’s the one on the ground making sure your day runs, from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to Royal Ascot.
