William Lynn is the man responsible for bringing horse racing to the parish of Aintree. Lynn was the owner of the Waterloo Hotel, and started horse racing on the land which he rented from the Earl of Sefton. The main stand started being built in 1829 and after 5 months the first meeting for Flat races was held. They didn’t start hurdle steeple chase racing until 1836, when the original Liverpool Grand Steeplechase was held at Aintree on February 29th. This competition was claimed by some as being the earliest ever English Grand National and was won by The Duke, ridden by Captain Martin Becher. However, the more well-known Liverpool Grand Steeplechase of 1839 is identified as the original, and was won by Lottery, ridden by Jem Mason. The battle of 1839 was a four miler, across country, and the law was that no rider to open a gate or ride through a gateway, or more than 100 yards along any highway, walkway or driftway.

The race track , and after the 1940 National it was again taken over by the army. Horse racing resumed in 1946 and in 1949 the race track was purchased by Messrs Topham Ltd; who had rented the land for more or less a 100 years; from the Earl of Sefton for 275,000. Mirabel Topham, an enterprising soul, went on to create the Mildmay course and a car circuit which held the Euro Grand Prix and five British Grand Prix.

Bill Davies purchased the race track in 1973 for 3 million and in 1975 Ladbrokes saved the English Grand National, which was in peril of becoming extinct, by managing and administering it for 7 years at a yearly charge of 250,000. In 1983 the race track was deemed safe and sound when the Jockey Club purchased it.

Aintree is now more suitable for purpose with vehicle links vastly improved. In the start it had been accessed by rail and paddleboat, but now it is reached by car, coach or air. There is a 6 acre area for landing by helicopter or the John Lennon airstrip 20 minutes drive away, meaning everyone enjoys the Grand National festival even more.

Betting odds are usually expressed as a fraction which represents the fraction of your stake that you will win if your selection wins eg: 20/1 (twenty to one), which means that for every one stake, you will win 20 stakes, but as you will get your stake back, the total amount returned in this example will be 21 stakes.

Single bet: for example this is a simply bet on say the Grand National that a particular runner will win a race and to calculate what you could win you multiply the basic factor by the stake eg: £5 win at 5/1 is 5 x 6 = £30.

Betting each-way: Putting a bet on each way really means placing two bets – The first bet is a standard win bet, and the second bet is if the runner finishes anywhere in the first three places (some bookies have a finish in the first four policy while others have a first five – for example Paddy Power did this for the Grand National). Settling an each-way bet isn’t as difficult as it may seem – You multiply the fractional odds by the place factor, which will give you the each-way basic factor, then add one or two, depending on whether the selection was placed or won.

If you place an each-way bet on a horse in an eight runner race and your horse, which has odds of 15/1 comes second in the race, then the win part of the each-way bet wouldn’t get you any winnings but the place part does achieve a win eg: 15/1 multiplied by the place factor (1/5 for 8-runner races) plus one (to include the place part of your stake) which works out as: 15/1 * 0.2 + 1 = £4.00.

If you were lucky enough that your horse won the race, the each-way factor would be calculated as 15/1 multiplied by the win factor and the place factor (the place factor plus one = 1.2), plus two (your two stakes) which works out as 15/1 * 1.2 + 2 = £20.00. This new each-way basic factor is then multiplied by the each-way stake to get the settlement figure.