The 2025 Grand National: How The British Do England's Best Horse Race
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - APRIL 05: I Am Maximus ridden by jockey Paul Townsend goes over The Chair Fence before finishing second in the Randox Grand National Handicap Chase during Grand National Day at Aintree Racecourse on April 05, 2025 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by)
The 177th running of Britain's Grand National Chase on April 5 was full to bursting with athletic talent, 34 runners in all, competing in the four-mile steeplechase over brush barriers such as 'The Chair' fence, pictured top being conquered by a sailing top-favorite I Am Maximus, trained by the iconic Irish trainer/steeplechase god Willie Mullins.
Those branches coming off in the foreground, to Maximus' left? They were left tumbling by the horse slightly in front of him, who's just dashed out of frame. If hit, the brush fence is meant to 'shed' like that. Forbidding as 'The Chair' is if you are mounted on a jumper hell-bent for it, and it is damned forbidding, the sustained chaos of a 30-plus field will inevitably prevent some runners from arriving in position to clear it without breaking stride, taking fences in stride being pretty much the precision-demanding trick in winning steeplechase races. Thus: The fence's flexible 'shedding,' such as it is, helps keep any runners who don't launch and clear from tumbling and hurting themselves and their jocks.
TOPSHOT - Racegoers arrive on the final day of the Grand National Festival horse race meeting at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, north-west England, on April 5, 2025. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
The customary rakish millinery and the supporting costume for the Grand National are as honed and extravagantly 19th-century as the racing. Given the season and the ur-British garden tradition, flowers are the rule. The most extravagant toppers and suitings are reserved for Ladies Day, traditionally held on the festival's Fridays. Pictured above and below, just a few of the racegoers in the 2025 Ladies Day Style Awards, Aintree's dress competition that is very nearly as hard-fought as the Grand National itself.
Excello ridden by Nico de Boinville competes in the Topham Handicap Chase on day two of the Grand National Festival at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool. Picture date: Friday April 4, 2025. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)
The star racing feature of the weekend, the 2025 Grand National, was won by the champion Irish trainer Willie Mullins, 68, who — in addition to saddling the favorite, I Am Maximus, the bookmakers' 2025 favorite precisely because he won the 2024 Grand National for Mullins — also saddled the eventual 2025 winner Nick Rockett. That horse was guided on Saturday's 4-mile odyssey by jockey Patrick Mullins, none other than the trainer's son. Living almost up to his odds, I Am Maximus turned in a strong place showing. In other words, the exacta was what we might call a 'Full Mullins.'
We could fairly say that the 2024 and 2025 victories are firmly in the Mullins ancestral DNA: Mullins is himself the son of a trainer — his mother Maureen was a successful breeder — raised in County Kilkenny, and with 110 victories to date, he's the most successful trainer racing at Britain's Cheltenham. As such, Mullins and his wife Jackie are very much on the British royal social radar: The pair were invited by Charles to ride in the his first-ever procession as king at the opening of the Royal Ascot meeting in 2023. Pictured below, channeling her inner Eliza Dolittle-at-Ascot in My Fair Lady — a Grand National Ladies Day attendee gives a master-class in how to do black and white in spring.
TOPSHOT - Ladies Day fashions on display on day two of the Grand National Festival horse race meeting at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, north-west England, on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
It's not an accident that the famous 1944 Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney film National Velvet centered its narrative around a sleeper-superstar of a horse being trained and ridden (by the character Velvet Brown, played by Taylor) in the Aintree Grand National Chase. Is there such a thing as a spoiler for National Velvet? Velvet Brown 'won' the race but was dismounted by a fall, thus was disqualified. The film, directed by Clarence Brown and filmed mostly in northern California, was the adolescent Taylor's big break into Hollywood, a town that she ultimately never left. Below, two especially careful 2025 Grand National Ladies Day amateur botanists demonstrate the extreme planar geometry of placing the straw in relation to the blooms.
TOPSHOT - Ladies Day fashions on display on day two of the Grand National Festival horse race meeting at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, north-west England, on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
Pictured below, jockey Paul Townend clears a low knockdown hurdle aboard the artistically named Salvator Mundi in the Grand National's Top Novices' Hurdle. He may not have saved the world, but he did go on to win the race.
Salvator Mundi ridden by Paul Townend on their way to winning the Top Novices' Hurdle on day two of the Randox Grand National Festival at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool. Picture date: Friday April 4, 2025. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)
Liverpool can get quite frosty in late March and early April, what with gales blowing in off the Irish Sea, but the rule at Aintree on Grand National weekend, and with emphasis on Ladies Day, is: Skin is in. Hence, in the two shots of racegoers below, off the shoulder frocks and spaghetti straps in addition to the good headgear. In British fashion parlance, the signature single flower, attended occasionally by a bit of lace, is called a fascinator. What gale off the Irish Sea? Who needs a coat? The fascinator and the spaghetti strap bring their own warmth.
TOPSHOT - A racegoer poses for a photo as Ladies Day fashions are seen on display on day two of the Grand National Festival horse race meeting at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, north-west England, on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
Racegoers on day two of the Randox Grand National Festival at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool. Picture date: Friday April 4, 2025. (Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - Racegoers pose for a photo as Ladies Day fashions are seen on display on day two of the Grand National Festival horse race meeting at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, north-west England, on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
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