The Grand National is the crown jewel of not just British horse racing, but arguably the entire sporting calendar. And don't just take our word for it; take parliament's instead.
The Aintree showdown is one of just a handful of events that are required by law to be broadcast on free-to-air TV, alongside the likes of the FIFA World Cup and Wimbledon.
Step onto the sacred turf at Aintree, even just for a moment, and you will discover exactly why.
You can feel the history around the place in your bones, knowing that the mammoth fences have not just crowned champions, but forged legends too.
How fitting, then, that 2025 delivered a script that will echo through turf talk for decades.
Nick Rockett's Upset for the Ages
Both tipsters and bookmakers alike may have scoffed at Nick Rockett’s chances before April's showpiece, sent off at a monstrous 33/1, but by the end, jaws were on the floor and Willie Mullins’ entrants were swarming the podium in a display of stable dominance rivalling any in living memory.
The fabled trainer's exploits were dazzling, sweeping first, second, and third, but the plaudits went to newly minted king Rockett, thanks to his roaring turn of pace up the home straight.
Attention has already turned to 2026, not just with racing fans but also online betting sites as well. Following his triumph this year, the narrative has been rewritten, Nick Rockett is no longer dismissed as a long shot by the bookmakers.
The latest horse racing odds Bovada are currently centred around the Breeders' Cup Classic, specifically 6/4 favourite Sovereignty and his bid to cap an all-time great three-year-old campaign.
As soon as attention pivots back to Aintree, though, you can expect Rockett to climb the odds board, with most horse racing bookies likely to slot the reigning hero as a 16/1 favourite to defend his crown.
Yet the 2025 showstopper is merely the latest to flourish at the National. Each leap over Aintree’s 30 menacing fences invites comparison with ghosts of Nationals past, legacies etched not just in winning margins, but in displays of spirit, resilience, and, sometimes, breathtaking fortune. Let’s revisit the greatest of them.
Red Rum
Red Rum. Just the name quickens the pulse of any racing purist. On Southport’s windswept shores, Irish-bred Red Rum, afflicted by a persistent bone disease, became the improbable embodiment of Aintree’s spirit.
Ginger McCain, his wily trainer, used the therapeutic sand of the Lancashire coast as both a track and a cure.
The result? In 1973, Red Rum stunned the world. Thirty lengths down with just over half a circuit to run, he hunted down Crisp in the dying strides to win by three-quarters of a length, a comeback immortalised forever.
And that was just the beginning. He would defend his title the following year, before a pair of heartbreaking runners-up finishes in 1975 and 1976 seemed to suggest that he would be remembered as a double champion.
Then, in 1977, the wily old veteran returned for one last crack at the greatest prize in the game.
Backed in to 9/1 by his adoring public, Red Rum rolled back the years one last time to deliver his third and final victory, finishing a whopping 25 lengths clear of the chasing pack and cementing his legacy as the only triple champion in history.
Tiger Roll
Flash forward nearly half a century, and another unlikely hero emerges, a 15.2-hand dynamo who never read the script.
Tiger Roll’s legend germinated far from Merseyside, on the rolling hills at Cullentra House under Gordon Elliott and Denise Foster’s steady hands.
His Cheltenham repertoire would shame most jumps careers: five Festival wins, versatility spanning hurdles to cross-country chaos.
But the crucible was always Aintree. In 2018, Tiger Roll cut through a field stacked with class and expectation, showcasing the tenacity that had already made him a punters’ darling.
Twelve months on, lightning struck again, history’s only back-to-back wins since the aforementioned Red Rum.
The numbers inspire, but the impression lingers longer: a crowd-pleaser whose heart belied his compact stature, and the only horse in four decades to coax Aintree into repeating celebration at the post.
Aldaniti
There are moments in sport that arch beyond mere competition. The 1981 National, Aldaniti and Bob Champion’s year, belongs to that small, rarefied set.
Both entered battered: Aldaniti, sidelined by a catastrophic leg injury; Champion, fighting back from chemotherapy and the ravages of cancer.
Few in racing expected either to return, almost no one thought both would.
The journey was almost impossibly dramatic. The pair surged to the front after the eleventh fence, with Champion coolly nursing Aldaniti home as if fate itself were in the irons.
Four lengths clear at 10/1, their victory was a win for every underdog, every patient, every optimist.
Corbiere
Statistically, Corbiere was a beast, winner of the 1982 Welsh National, weighing in at 158 pounds for the big one.
But his true import was symbolic: under Jenny Pitman’s visionary guidance, Corbiere’s 1983 moment in the Aintree sun shattered horse racing’s most stubborn glass ceiling.
Pitman wasn’t just the first female National-winning trainer, she became proof that, at the sport’s highest echelon, opportunity, grit, and mastery carry no gender.
Corbiere’s third-place finishes in 1984 and 1985, plus a brave 12th in 1987 (even after a fall in ’86), build the statistical record, but his place in the pantheon rests on something much larger: a moment where tradition yielded to progress.
