Dual Grand National winning jockey Leighton Aspell will retire after riding at Fontwell on Sunday. Aspell, 43, will ride Ventura Dragon (4.20) and Itsnotwhatyouthink (5.20) for two of his biggest fans.

Held on Ladies Day at the Aintree festival, the summit brings women in sport and business together to discuss how they continue to break down barriers and inspire others to follow suit.

Fergal O'Brien landed the Marston's Midlands Grand National with Chase The Spud three years ago and Petite Power (Uttoxeter, 3.35) could strike again for the affable Gloucestershire trainer.

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.

Presenter Ed Chamberlin says he hopes ITV broadcasting racing from Ireland on Saturday will be a tonic for sports fans in a barren live sporting landscape.

Hundreds of new homes are to be built on a stud farm near Newmarket, Sebastian Shakespeare has the latest including what's going on with the Archer's actors and what Mumford & Sons are using for loo roll.

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.

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.

EXCLUSIVE BY MARCUS TOWNEND: Racemail understands the historic organisation, which was formed in 1750 and has 15 British racecourse, has furloughed nearly two thirds of its workforce.

The Jockey Club announced the first day of the 2021 festival would be renamed Liverpool's NHS Day, with thousands of tickets donated to NHS and professional carers 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.

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...

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.

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

Our book critic tests your knowledge of the best boosk released in 2019, with this fun, challenging literary quiz

Did you know that in 2019 a Belgian man broke the record for sitting on the toilet for the longest time - 116 hours?

The most frequently quoted observation about Hollywood is the simplest, and possibly also the truest. 'In Hollywood,' said screenwriter William Goldman, 'no one knows anything.'

Ah, the Golden Age of Travel! This is not a book to be read while you are standing cooped-up on a crowded staircase for ten minutes as part of Ryanair's 'Priority Boarding'

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!

There have been books, articles, films and plays galore about Philby, Maclean, Burgess and Blunt, but nobody seems to know or care about the 'Fifth Man', John Cairncross

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

Now aged 93 ('well past my sell-by date'), Jan Morris has taken to keeping a diary, or something like a diary, but more public, as it is clearly written for publication

Anne Tyler's prose style is clear and unshowy. Her sentences have no flourishes. You could almost say that their only identifying feature is their lack of an identifying feature

With this, her first novel, Naoise Dolan proves she is a wonderfully sharp, comic writer, adept at making wisecracks in the caustic, knock-'em-off, knock-'em-down tradition of Dorothy Parker

What a bizarre book this is: three parts funny to one part stark, staring horror

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

Bernice A. King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter, delivered speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, on MLK Day. Thousands around the country celebrate his legacy.

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.

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.

Downing Street has rejected a big business demand to allow low-skilled migration from the EU to continue after Brexit, telling companies to focus on training UK workers instead.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon insisted it is vital that immigration from the EU is allowed to carry on after Brexit, saying the economy needs workers.

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

The Migration Advisory Committee said post-Brexit arrangements to replace EU freedom of movement could slow the growth in the UK population and make people slightly better off.

Boris Johnson lashed out after the SNP leader said immigration from the EU must continue north of the border because the economy needs workers.

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.

Dozens of foreigners who may have been exposed to the potentially deadly coronavirus are set to be secretly held in isolation at a hotel near the centre of Sydney, a source has revealed. 

Mexican national, Erick Diaz, 26, was shot in the face by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who was attempting to arrest his mother's boyfriend.