I loved the Grand National - until I saw what I saw
My grandfather was an Aintree Racecourse turf accountant in the 1950s, though it was known as Liverpool Racecourse at that time.
I inherited the gambling bug and throughout my teenage years would chance a risky investment - the Grand National was a particularly favourite race. I remember naming my pet goldfish after a Grand National winner - Specify!A few years later I was driving different girlfriends to the annual event; one time, in a red Triumph Spitfire sports car bought for cash.
In my student years, I even"chalked the board" at a Ladbrokes betting shop on Grand National Day, scribing the winner, runners up and the SPs . Only recently at Doncaster Racecourse, a young filly, named Anna Fallow, who had not even reached her second birthday, lost her life in her very first race.
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