Virtual Grand National 2020 – live!

Apart from Elizabeth Taylor, who won the Grand National on board The Pie in the 1944 movie National Velvet, a total of 30 horses have been ridden by women down the years in the Grand National.

Charlotte Brew was the first to get the leg up, in 1977, when her mount Barony Forth refused at the 26th fence. Geraldine Reece became first women to complete the course, finishing in eighth and last place on board Cheers five years later. While no woman has ever ridden the winner of the Grand National, Katie Walsh became the highest place finisher when she came third on Seabass in 2012.

In this year’s virtual affair, there are three women taking their chance. Bryony Frost, whose father Jamie won the 1989 race on Little Polveir, rides 28-1 shot Yala Enki, Rachael Blackmore and Burrows Saint look a decent bet at 12-1 and Lisa O’Neill is a long shot on Shattered Love.

What would have happened at Aintree today if the great race had gone ahead? Confined to barracks with too much time on his hands like the rest of us when he’d much prefer to be gadding around Aintree, Chris Cook reads his racing runes.

Although today’s race has been pre-recorded, those privy to the result have been sworn to secrecy and punters with online betting accounts will be able to have a punt on the race, should they so desire.

The odds on each horse are fixed and stakes are restricted to a maximum of a £10 win or £10 each way per person. Earlier this week, bookmakers announced that all profits generated will be donated to NHS Charities Together. Any punters who hit pay dirt are also invited to donate some or all of their winnings by clicking on the link above.

A cynical ploy the bookmakers to generate some much-needed good PR while encouraging newbies to open new online accounts? The cynic in me says yes, but Gary Follis, of the Betting and Gaming Council, which represents all the major firms offering odds on the race, did his best to allay such fears earlier this week.

“We’ve developed a set of rules around this and there’s going to be no marketing to new customers, it’s only going to be promoted among the current customer base, and there’s also going to be guidelines around the treatment of any new customer who signs up as a result of this,” he said.

“Like any Grand National, there will always be new customers, though probably considerably fewer this time around, but we’re looking at ways to put them into a separate database, so that they don’t receive any follow-up marketing or cross-promotion of other products.”

Following the cancellation of the actual Grand National, originally slated to take place at Aintree today, due to the coronavirus pandemic, ITV Racing have decided to stage a computer-simulated running of the world’s most famous steeplechase instead.

Using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), a field of 40 virtual horses and riders will tackle the famous fences over four-and-a-half miles, cheered on by tens of thousands of virtual racegoers and followed – in a nice touch – by a virtual ambulance which won’t be a drain a NHS resources.

“The simulation itself is made up of mathematical algorithms using data taken from the horses’ previous performances,” say the Racing Post.

“The race’s outcome uses a number of factors such as age, weight, form and weather conditions but also contains details such as fallers, unseated riders and collapsed fences.

“Data on all of the 40 runners from this year’s race have been added and the computer has generated odds. The three previous Virtual Grand Nationals have been strikingly accurate, with Tiger Roll completing the virtual-real life double in 2018.”

Greetings all and welcome to this afternoon’s live coverage of what is ostensibly … well, a cartoon. Yep, the current sporting lockdown means it’s come to this, but as the former National Hunt jockey Andrew Thornton said in one preview of today’s virtual Grand National that I viewed yesterday: “Anything’s better than nothing.” He’s not wrong.

As we enter our third week of sport-free house arrest in the UK, stay tuned for coverage of a race that won’t so much stop a nation like the famous Melbourne Cup, but provide some much-needed amusement for an already stationary nation as its citizens remain on lockdown and in need of some more than welcome sporting distraction.

The flag is due to drop at 5pm (BST) and we’re reasonably hopeful there won’t be a false start, but stay tuned in the meantime for what we are loosely going to term buildup. It’s a bit of fun for all the family and with any profits made by bookmakers going to NHS Charities Together (more of which anon), the cause could scarcely be more worthy in the current weird climate.