Grand National Day 2011

Grand National Day 2011, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

It's Grand National Day again today, a day which has been importnat to me since 1973 when Red Rum just got up on the run-in to beat my pick Crisp. One of the most important days of my year and one I look forward to every year. I have been to Aintree twice but, to be honest, the coverage on the BBC is so good, you don't really need to go to feel the excitement. Every now and then, as now, I have been away on Grand National day, today in Riyadh, in 1980 in Kuala Lumpur and in 1998 and 1999 in California. With the coming of the internet age, it seems as if I will be able to watch the race (after the event) on sportinglife.com - just need to make sure I navigate around the page without seeing the result!

My pick for this year, Always Waining, did not make the field, being number 41 of a maximum field of 40 runners. However, he ran in the shorter Topham Chase over the National fences yesterday and despite being tipped by me here on flickr, he actually WON at 14-1! And, I managed to get my Mum to put a few quid each way on for me.

I have no idea who will win today and I don't really care too much for most of the horses running, although I have put a small part of my winnings yesterday on Ballabriggs, Oscar Time and Becauseicouldntsee (I HATE that sort of name!). My colleague Ian's wife gave birth to a Grand National baby today, and his name in Evan. So, for coincidence bets we have State of Play (already come in 3rd and 4th in a National and available at 33-1) trained by Evan Williams as well as Santas Son (the biggest outsider at 200-1) running. If you are backing any horses, good luck.

This is Saleh with his two year old colt a couple of days ago in Najran.