Latest news with #People'sRace
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Sunshine for final day of Grand National 2025 at Aintree Racecourse
Sunshine is predicted for the final day of the Grand National 2025 at Aintree Racecourse. The Met Office said it will be chillier today, Saturday, April 5, than it was on Friday. However, temperatures will still reach highs of 18C and lows of 4C. A spokesperson said: "A chillier start with low cloud in the east. Cloud soon melting away to leave a dry and sunny day. Feeling cooler than on Friday with a brisk easterly wind." The average temperature for this time of year is around 12C in England and 10C in Scotland. However, the majority of this week has seen plenty of sunshine and high temperatures. READ MORE: 'Little girl playing in front garden' as shots fired at neighbouring house READ MORE: Paul McCartney said 'that's going too far' after interpretations of Beatles classic Saturday will be the final day of the Grand National 2025 at Aintree Racecourse, with the main event taking place at 4pm on Saturday, April 5. The four miles, two-and-a-half furlong steeplechase is known as the People's Race. This year, there are 34 horses going head-to-head in Britain's most iconic race. Defending champion I Am Maximus heads the 34 declarations, while Shark Hanlon-trained Hewick is another popular pick and Iroko is the leading British hope. Aintree's Grand National receives more attention around the world than any other horse race - and victory in the race has always been the pinnacle of ambition for owners, trainers and jockeys. Actors, aristocrats, businesspeople, comedians, coiffeurs, celebrities, moguls, politicians, pop stars, sporting heroes, Kings, Queens and Princes have all tried for glory, but only a fortunate few have succeeded. It is one of the biggest tests for a racehorse and rider who have to complete two circuits of the iconic Grand National course - with 30 fences to be jumped as four miles, two furlongs and about 74 yards are covered. Famous landmarks around the course are an integral part of the Grand National experience; with fences such as Becher's Brook, the Canal Turn, Valentine's and The Chair so well known to the millions who watch the race at Aintree or on television each year. Familiar phrases of commentators such as 'crossing the Melling Road' are built into people's subconscious, while races are frequently won and lost as contenders navigate the 'Elbow', with the winning post in sight. Not only is the great race compelling, it can also be financially rewarding. Prize money of £1m is again on offer for those who compete in the 177th running of the Randox Grand National at Aintree, with money on offer stretching down to the 10th home. It is by far the largest amount of money that any race over fences can boast. A crowd of around 130,000 racegoers gather at Aintree over the three days of the Randox Grand National Festival, with a worldwide TV audience of more than 600m. Sunday is also looking bright with clear skies. Temperatures will be slightly lower, reaching highs of around 16C and lows of 4C. A spokesperson for the Met Office said: "Outlook for Sunday to Tuesday: Remaining dry and settled on Sunday and into next week. "Chilly nights, though daytime temperatures edging back up and feeling warm in the sunshine. Breezy at first, then winds easing." Get all the big headlines, pictures, analysis, opinion and video on the stories that matter to you by signing up to our daily and breaking newsletter. Sign up to our breaking news newsletter here. Follow us on X @LivECHONews - the official Liverpool ECHO Twitter account - real news in real time. We're also on Facebook/theliverpoolecho - your must-see news, features, videos and pictures throughout the day from the Liverpool ECHO.
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Grand National fairytale on cards with ‘click-and-collect' Horantzau D'Airy
There are some who say that the Grand National has lost its soul, that it is now a race for powerhouse stables and elite, big-money owners, not the dreamers and windmill-tilters that helped to make it the People's Race. But it seems that the news has yet to reach the small stable in Newmarket where Michael Keady prepares Horantzau D'Airy, the eight-year-old gelding that will head to Aintree on Saturday afternoon as a 100-1 chance to win the National, for a trainer who has yet to saddle a single winner over jumps. There are no end of plotlines in the story of Horantzau D'Airy's path to Liverpool that would ensure the film script would write itself if he could somehow join the list of National winners at three-figure odds this weekend. Keady has held a trainer's licence for less than six months, his yard is in the Flat-racing fortress of Newmarket, which has not sent a National winner to Aintree for nearly a century, while Keady's girlfriend, Ruth, who rides Horantzau D'Airy on the gallops every morning, is a native of Formby, just a dozen miles from the track. And then there is the 'click-and-buy' aspect of his unlikely journey, from Willie Mullins's all-conquering jumping yard in County Carlow to a corner of East Anglia, where he rubs shoulders with three-year-old Classic contenders on the gallops each morning of Willie Mullins. It was not quite eBay or Vinted, but Horantzau D'Airy was bought on the web – complete with his National entry – for £50,000 at Tattersalls' Online Sale in early March, leaving Keady with a problem that many of us would appreciate: how to arrange the delivery. There was, he decided, only one option. 'I could have got him over in a shared lorry,' Keady said this week, 'but we bought him on a Thursday and he wouldn't have arrived until the following Tuesday. I was obviously conscious that the Grand National was coming up pretty soon, so I wanted him back as soon as possible. 'I got back from Kempton at 11 on Tuesday night, and we were booked on the half-seven ferry on Friday morning. We left at 1am, the head lad kindly drove to Holyhead and we went over to Willie Mullins's to pick him up, and we were safely back in the yard on Saturday morning.' Horantzau D'Airy arrived in Newmarket exactly four weeks before the National, and Keady is still coming to terms with the prospect of saddling a runner in the world's most famous steeplechase. 'It doesn't feel real sometimes when you're talking to people about it,' he says. 'Things come out of your mouth and it doesn't quite sound like it's your mouth, it's a bit surreal for a lad that grew up 12 miles down the road from Newmarket racecourse. 'We're an Irish family and the Grand National was always a big event in our house growing up, but no-one in my family was involved in racing in any way so it's not something you'd ever really envisage happening. 'But dad and grandad were always mad into their horse racing, I suppose that was the Irish in them that was drawn to that, and I always remember going down to the pub with dad on Grand National Saturday to watch it with my brothers and sisters. 'I wish my grandads were around to see it, but my dad is, he lives over in Ireland now and him and mum are coming over for the race, and most of the family will be there, to try to make it a family affair on the other end of the scale this time.' Flat racing's spiritual home has swung behind its unexpected challenge for jumping's biggest event, with the Jockey Club, which owns Newmarket's famous gallops, going as far as setting up a replica Aintree fence to give Horantzau D'Airy a sighter of what to expect on Saturday. 'They very kindly put up a fence and they weren't shy in doing it,' he says. 'It was a pretty big one. Ciaran Gethings [Horantzau D'Airy's big-race jockey] came in and jumped it and said they wouldn't be as big as that around Aintree. He won the Topham [over the National fences] last year, so he knows his way around. It was a good test and he passed with flying colours.' Keady's gelding is, as you would expect, something of a novelty around Newmarket, where the Classic prospects are emerging from their winter slumber to find a strapping steeplechaser in their midst. 'There's about 5,000 horses here and probably no more than 100 of those are jumpers,' he says. 'He's a big boy and he does stand out a bit. Every morning where we're riding out, people are asking where he is, but it doesn't take long to realise. He's about a hand bigger than anything else.' Horantzau D'Airy's preparation, meanwhile, has gone without a hitch. 'He had a bit of a lung infection, which we sorted out, and in the last 10 days or two weeks, he's started to come alive,' Keady says. 'I don't think anyone will ever take a horse from Willie Mullins and improve it, but if we can just get him back to his best, I wouldn't put him far away from running a big race. 'You never know with the Grand National, and you've got to be in it to win it. Someone said to me the other day, you've bought your lottery ticket, so we'll see where we are at about 4.15 on Saturday afternoon.'
