A Grand day out
Race-goers get Aintree started in fabulous style
THE dress code said only “to feel your best” – but Aintree’s crowds made sure they looked fantastic too on the first day of the Grand National Festival.
Bright colours, including lots of Barbie-inspired pink, summer frocks and big bouncy hair dominated the stands despite showers threatening to turn it into Raintree.
Among yesterday’s big winners were local boutiques in Merseyside, which reported a 600% increase in demand for fake tan and 65% for fake lashes.
Men kept their side up, too, with an estimated seven in 10 wearing suits, including former Liverpool and England football ace John Barnes, 60. He said: “The Grand National is a standalone phenomenon in Liverpool.
“As much as we talk about football and The Beatles, when I was playing for Liverpool we came to the Grand National, as did a lot of Liverpool and Everton supporters.
Double
“My most memorable moment was in 1989, when I had a race with Alan Hansen down to Becher’s Brook, and he beat me. I pulled my hamstring and I was out for two games!” Tomorrow’s Randox Grand National will be the 176th time the worldfamous race has been run since it began in 1839. Bookmakers, who say 10 times more bets are placed than on the Cheltenham
Gold Cup, fear hot favourite Corach Rambler completing the double following his victory last year.
If he does – a feat that has only been accomplished by seven horses – he could plunge bookies £150million in the red.
Yesterday belonged to Il Etait Temps, ridden by Paul Townend, inset below, who got the meeting under way by bagging the Manifesto Novices’ Chase. Tomorrow a
crowd of