April 8, 1999. Copyright, 1999, Graphic News. All rights reserved

BUILD-UP TO THE GRAND NATIONAL
By Midge Todhunter

LONDON, April 8, Graphic News:  WELL before dawn breaks over the Aintree skyline, activity will have begun in the adjacent racecourse stables. Lads will be up and about tending to their horses Ð some will have travelled long distances and completed their journey the previous day.
Meanwhile those closer at hand will be organised to make the trip in good time, their travel plans to the Liverpool course bearing all the logistic hallmarks of a military campaign, beginning with the carefully calculated Ômust-be-gone-byÕ hour.
Both horse and attendant carry Jockey Club-issued passports as proof of identification, particularly for entry into the pre-race stables. Tight security surrounds the whole area with no horse ever left unattended.
By 10.00am most big-race contenders will be at AintreeÕs stables and the approved farriers will be on their rounds fitting special aluminium racing shoes known as ÔplatesÕ. Many of the horses might have competed in their normal work shoes in any other race, but this is the big one and nothing will be left to chance.
Since first light the horseÕs water intake will have been closely monitored. To avoid colic, care will have been taken to prevent them eating bulky roughage like hay or straw and a light feed of concentrates will have been their only breakfast.
11.30am and the tension is beginning to build. Most jockeys are by now in the Aintree weighing room before the mass crowds make it impossible to move. JockeysÕ valets will be systematically attending to details; polishing boots, checking colours, sorting saddle-weights Ð itÕs no ordinary day for them either.
Also licensed by the Jockey Club, each valet looks after a designated clutch of jockeys Ð it is his job to ensure each rider Ôweighs-outÕ at the allotted handicap weight, wearing the correct colours. In the hurly-burly of the changing rooms there may be 40-odd jockeys, 100 saddles and lead-cloths and 150 different sets of colours contributing to the general pressure and confusion.
By mid-day TV interviews are underway, helicopters whirl overhead as the worldÕs media gather in preparation to broadcast the story across the globe. The preliminary races come and go, important enough to be feature races on any other card, but paling into insignificance as the mighty event looms.
Forty-five minutes to go, and each Grand National contestant is by now almost a household name. The preparation for the big race is underway and the runners begin to gather in the parade ring. Weighing-out begins, officially recorded by the Clerk of the Scales, with jockeys in their race colours and with correctly-weighted saddle. The jockey must return after the race to the same scales with the same weight Ð discrepancy of one pound only allowed.
The jockey hands the saddle to the trainer, who will saddle the horse in its designated box adjacent to the parade ring.
Twenty minutes to go and jockeys are called into the parade ring to greet anxious owners and trainers and receive any last minute instructions before mounting. All race tactics and planning will have been done in the days leading up to the race.
Jockeys mounted, the runners are sorted into race-card order before filing past the massed crowds on the stands, and now the serious pressure begins to bear.
A look at the first fence reminds the horse of whatÕs on, but it is a ritual of little consequence. During the next 10 minutes turf history will be made, and as they line up for the start the jockeys know that shortly, for one of them, life will never be quite the same.
ÔTheyÕre under starterÕs ordersÉand theyÕre off!Õ
/ENDS