|
By Sophie Brown
BBC Sport at Aintree
|
The Friday at Aintree's Grand National meeting is always Ladies Day, but this year it's been Ladies Day all week in the build-up to Saturday's big race.
Tony McCoy rides Like-A-Butterfly to victory in Friday's opener
|
First, we had the acres of newsprint on whether Carrie Ford could prove the dinosaurs of racing wrong by becoming the first woman to win the Grand National.
Then, as winter returned to Merseyside and the rain lashed Aintree, the focus switched to Lucinda Russell, who trains soft-ground-lover Strong Resolve.
Could she become only the second female to train a Grand National winner, which would be the first Scottish winner since Rubstic in 1979?
Friday itself dawned bright with blue skies and there was an early coup for the so-called fairer sex when mare Like-A-Butterfly won the first race of the day, the Mildmay Novices' Steeplechase, with Chauvinist finishing well down the field.
A horse called Mighty Man won the second race but it proved to be merely a blip.
Then Moscow Flyer, trained in Ireland by Jessica Harrington, won the day's big race.
Some of those at Aintree on Friday believed that less is more
|
Then Asian Maze, like Like-A-Butterfly a mare trained in Ireland, came home in front of her male counterparts.
The weather tried its best to dampen the mood - there were even flurries of snowflakes blowing around - but to no avail.
Skimpy is the fashion whatever the weather on Ladies Day at Aintree and this year was no exception - wearing a strapless chiffon outfit in a force nine gale is almost de rigeur on Merseyside.
One racegoer, Emma Shields, had the warming news that she had won the Looking Good Style Contest.
She is now the owner of a very fashionable Jaguar X-Type, beating off some committed competition, not least from a couple of women wearing just bikinis.
So Friday was a good day for the women but, as the official Ladies Day drew to a close, will "Ladies Week" spill into Saturday and create Grand National history?
MMIX
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
