Graham Buddry on Aintree’s glorious amateurs

In the days when the Grand National was a real test of courage of both horse and rider - the fences were huge and unforgiving with enormous ditches and big drops - there was one other major difference as well.
Like in the fictitious, yet brilliant old film, National Velvet, virtually anyone and anything could enter the race and some of the feats performed at Aintree by amateur riders were incredible. To encapsulate the true spirit of what the National really used to be we’ll look at three short years of the great race, ye...