“He doesn’t use a saddle,” she said, pointing at her husband riding a stallion in a field, “he controls the stallion with his bum – and the saddle would only get in the way.”

“He controls the horse with his bum?!?” I asked skeptically.

“I don’t get it myself,” she said, “but he’s the greatest rider I’ve ever known and he says his bum can tell him what the horse will do, before the horse even thinks to do it.”

The woman I was talking to was a horse trainer and I was taking a horse riding lesson. She had over 60 horses so I assumed she knew what she was doing – but clearly not as well as her husband, the Bum Ranger. 

While she didn’t teach me how to control a horse with my posterior, I can confirm that, for me, riding a horse was less about telling the horse what to do and more about holding on and accepting that it will go in the direction it wants to go in. 

I wasn’t a good rider, though Mrs TwinBikeRun has kept up the lessons and has become decent, even though she uses an old-fashioned saddle and reigns and not a buttock.

As she loves horse riding, we decided to visit the Grand National, to see ‘real’ horse riding in action. Neither of us had been to horse racing before so I thought it was worth sharing a guide to how to get there and what to do while you’re there.

(And while this year’s race was notable for the animal rights protests, I’ll keep away from the politics of jump horse racing here. This is purely a practical guide to getting around.)

What is the Grand National?

I know the Grand National more as that thing that race that always causes someone to start a sweepstake in the office. It’s nicknamed the People’s Race but it should really be called the Office Sweepstake Race as, for most people, that’s all it is: a sweepstake to win £50 and beat Kevin from Accounting.

In-person, the race is not just one race but a series of races over three days culminating in the Grand National race itself on Saturday evening. 

Where is it held?

Aintree, near Liverpool.

How do you get tickets?

Ticket sales start almost as soon as the race finishes. There are different categories. We bought tickets for West Tip, which is a covered stand. On the day, we didn’t need to use the tickets as it was a nice day and we could find good places to stand next to the race barriers but it was good to know that if it had rained, we would have been able to sit in the stand and remain dry.

How did you get there?

We struggled to get accommodation in Liverpool and stayed in Manchester instead. From there, it’s around 45 minutes by train to Liverpool Lime Street station and then only a few minutes walk to Liverpool Central station to change train for Aintree. 

Where there long queues?

Not really. Everything is slick and we were on the train within 10 minutes of arriving at the station and, on the way back, we were heading away from Aintree within 20 minutes of joining the queue. Trains run every 7 minutes during the race and for a few hours after it.

What did you do at the racecourse?

First, we binned all our drugs. 😊

Then we alternated watching the races with checking out the parade ground and placing bets. Due to the number of people at the race course, it’s slow going to move around so leave plenty of time to see everything.

There were a number of good places to watch the race, with options to stand at the barrier near to the jumps. There are also screens for watching the parts of the race you can’t see from the pavilions. 

Do you have to dress up?

There’s no dress code so you can wear what you want. I wore jeans and a jumper and looked like a hardcore gambler because there’s eight main types of people at Aintree.

• The young team dressed in polyester too tight suits
• The stable set in tweeds and riding boots 
• The country set in tweeds and flat caps
• The peaky blinder set in polyester suits and flat caps
• The evening dress girls
• The barely dressed girls
• The women with the hat they bought for weddings – and race courses.
• And a small number of men (and they were all men) in jeans, a jacket and their head buried in a copy of the Racing Post.

Since I had jeans and a jacket I was a newspaper away from being a hardcore gambler. 

What was the food and drink like?

Lots of food vans, loads of bars and prices were not extortiate (though not cheap either). We didn’t buy as we arrived at 1:30 and left at 6 so had already had lunch so I don’t know about quality.

How easy is it to place a bet?

Very. There’s loads of bookies lining the racetrack. If you know what you’re doing, I’m sure there’s loads of options, but for us, we just placed £2.50 on X to win. You got a slip and, if you win, you take the slip back and they paid you in cash straight away. 

And did you win?

Yep!

Overall

Politics aside, if you’re thinking of going, then go. It’s good fun, plenty to do, and it’ll give you plenty of chances to see whether a top jockey can also control a thoroughbred with his bahookie.