The decision, which follows the announcement by the Jockey Club on Monday evening to cancel the Randox Health Grand National, will place the sport under considerable financial strain.

Jump jockey Danny Cook should have been dreaming about riding leading hope Definitly Red in the £1million Randox Health Grand National at Aintree on April 4.

We will never know if Tiger Roll would have won a third Grand National at Aintree on April 4 but we will get to see if he wins the 2020 Virtual Grand National with ITV planning to broadcast the race.

The bookmaking industry are close to announcing a plan to bet on Saturday's Virtual Reality Grand National with any profits made going to the NHS Charities Group.

EXCLUSIVE BY DOMINIC KING AND MATT HUGHES: The cancellation of Saturday's Randox Health Grand National will cost almost half a billion pounds in lost revenue.

Soldiers were pictured alongside the aircraft this afternoon and then seen scoping out the site, which is less than a mile from Aintree Hospital in Merseyside.

Millions of people take part every year in a Grand National sweepstake - and even though the race won't be run this year, you can still have some fun with our kit for Saturday's Virtual Grand National. 

Forty runners and riders will line up tomorrow for the most anticipated race of the jumps season - but, with horseracing shut down, the Grand National's venue will be cyberspace, not Aintree.

It is just for fun but go on, admit it, you're just a little bit curious to see if Tiger Roll can make Grand National history - even if it is only in a virtual world.

Glamorous would-be attendees have been donning their glad-rags and showcasing their fineries online as they mark Ladies Day at Aintree during the coronavirus pandemic.

The first Saturday in April could have been one of the biggest days in racing in recent memory, but this year's Grand National will instead be held virtually. Here, Sportsmail's Sam Turner provides his tips...

PETER SCUDAMORE: Despite big weight, dual winner Tiger Roll must surely go close to landing a Grand National hat-trick in Saturday's virtual race, but KIMBERLITE CANDY is my bet.

Ahead of Saturday's Virtual Grand National programme on ITV which also includes a Race of Champions, Sportsmail's MARCUS TOWNEND relives 10 of the Greatest Grand Nationals.

Usually an appetiser before the main event, the virtual version of the famous steeplechase takes centre stage on Saturday after the famous Aintree race was cancelled due to coronavirus.

DOMINIC KING: It's the jarring sight of the Blue Anchor that first strikes you. This huge pub, a furlong from the Melling Road, is usually such a bouncing venue for the three days.

MARCUS TOWNEND: We've had the void Grand National, the bomb scare Grand National and dramas like Devon Loch collapsing on the run-in with the race at his mercy in 1956.

Almost five million people tuned in to Saturday's Virtual Grand National won by 18-1 shot Potters Corner as over £2.6million was raised for NHS Charities Together from people betting on the race.

Potters Corner won his trainer Christian Williams a virtual fortune yesterday during a computer simulation of the Grand National watched by almost five million viewers.

Laurie Lee died in 1997. A couple of years ago, David Parker, who made a documentary, found his recordings of Lee in a mis-labelled box and presented them to Penguin

In all, Kenneth Rose wrote six million words of diaries, of which his appointed editor has selected roughly half a million for publication. If these are the gems, I dread to think what the duds were like

Over the past few years, an increasing number of novels have included real-life members of the Royal Family as characters. Now B W Black has written a novel involving the Royal princesses

The shortest sentence in this autobiography is also the truest. 'Brevity,' writes John Bercow, 'is not my strong suit.' You can say that again!

House Of Glass flows with the amazing clarity and delicacy of a fine novel. By the end, I was completely wrapped up in the sharply contrasting characters of the Glass family

Moving into the White House, which had just been built in the middle of a rutted field, America's second president, John Adams, prayed: 'May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.'

Here We Are opens in a theatre in Brighton, 1959. A snazzy tap-dancing showbiz personality called Jack Robinson is waiting in the wings. The world of entertainment is on the cusp of change

For the most part, Kate Fall regards her role as a memoirist as an extension of her job as gatekeeper: to present the polished face of the Cameron administration to the world

John Carey is a welcoming host, full of enthusiasm, and the opposite of crusty. He can throw sparkling light on a poet's method in a handful of words

Doyle follows an ever-increasing line of academics who attempt to sanctify pop music with stuffiness. In so doing, they extinguish its fire in a great whoosh of homogenous jargon

'Dangerous criminals are being released every single day', an ICE spokesman said. Sanctuary cities like NYC limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.

Downing Street today gave a strong hint a government plan to impose a minimum earnings threshold on migrants who want to come to the UK after Brexit will be dropped.

Mexican authorities recaptured 100 of more than 200 that fled an immigration station on Monday in southern Mexico as hundreds more remained stuck on the Suchiate River's shore.

The Prime Minister will vow to 'mobilise the full breadth of our new freedoms' on Brexit night - as his Bill paving the way for Britain to leave the EU was finally passed by Parliament yesterday.

The Home Secretary apparently set out on Tuesday that there will be no so-called 'carve outs' under Boris Johnson's Australian-style points-based immigration system.

The former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director blasted Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her repeated 'idiotic' comments that the agency should be abolished.

New Zealand expatriates in Australia have called on Russell Crowe to support their bid to change 'racially discriminatory' citizenship laws.

A rapist who dodged deportation after a mutiny by plane passengers will next month launch another bid to avoid being booted out of Britain. Yaqub Ahmed was jailed for a total of nine years.

A student bragged about how he snuck into Australia from China by lying on his arrival form, despite a travel ban to protect citizens from coronavirus.

The court filing on Monday accuses Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration of ignoring subpoenas from Immigration and Customs Enforcement demanding information about Reeaz Khan.

The federal government plans to set up English classes in refugee camps to give potential immigrants a better shot at getting a job when they get to Australia.

HENRY DEEDES: I have spent two rollercoaster weeks watching Donald Trump at close quarters, and speaking to scores who voted for him in 2016 and who intend to do so again.

Adau Mornyang, 25, was held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centre in New York for three months before her release on December 21.

The 33 illegal immigrants were found on Monday hiding in a lorry in Calais, France by shocked border force guards after clambering aboard at Dover. Many have now been returned to the UK.

The High Court has ruled in a majority 4-3 verdict that Aboriginal people can't be deported from Australia because they are exempt from immigration laws under the constitution.

US Attorney General William Barr announced a new slew of sanctions against sanctuary cities, in what he called a 'significant escalation' against obstruction of US immigration laws.

President Donald Trump attacked Mike Bloomberg as a 'total racist' after audio surfaced of his 2015 speech adamantly defending stop and frisk police policies.

The population in parts of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane is growing at double the national average pace. CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman cited international students.

A Hispanic student, who is a US citizen, says she was told by a teacher in Chicago to go back her country because she wouldn't stand during the national anthem at an assembly at her school.

Members of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Border Patrol Tactical Unit will be among the officers deployed to cities to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Migrants will also earn 'points' for how well they speak English. In some cases migrants taking jobs paying as little as £23,000 could be granted visas, depending on their skills.

Backpackers are being invited to help Australian farmers and communities rebuild after devastating bushfires, with visa changes designed to encourage them to join the effort.