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The Grand National is the single most famous horse race in the world, dating back to 1836 it is a race steeped in heritage, being run at Liverpool's famous Aintree Racecourse annually during the month of April. Without fail, for the one day each year, the race captures the imagination of the entire nation, from equine enthusiasts who live and breath racing to housewives who know very little about the sport of horse racing for the other 364 days of the year.

Run over a testing four mile four furlongs, the longest distance of any steeplechase handicap and consiting of 30 challenging fences, the tallest of which is 'The Chair', which stands at over 5ft in height. It takes a very specialist type of racehorse to successfully navigate the famous Aintree course and fences, let alone win the race. It is for this reason that each winner heads straight in to Racing's Hall of Fame.

The Grand National allows for a maximum of 40 enteries, and with places in such high demand thanks to the prestige of winning the race, let alone the £700,000 in prize money available it is no surprise that the maximum 40 runners is reached every year as owners and trainers set out on their quest to unearth the next Grand National hero.

In its long history, the Grand National has been run 168 times throwing up 153 different winners. The only occasions when the race wasn't run was for three years during World War I, five years during World War II and that infamous race in 1993 when the race was abandoned due to several false starts and failure to come back and line up.

The most famous winner of the Grand National was Red Rum, who won the race an amazing three times in four years during the 1970's. Winning the race back to back in 1973 and 1974, before winning again in 1977. Amazingly, Red Rum also finished second in the two years when he didn't win the race in '75 and '76.

Peter Simple won in 1849 and 1853

Abd-El-Kadr won the race in 1850 and 1851

The Colonel won in 1869 and 1870

The Lamb won in 1868 and 1871

Manifesto won twice in 1895 and 1904 (and also hold the record for the most number of Grand National appearances, lining up on an impressive eight occasions).

Reynoldstown won in 1935 and 1936

Red Rum was the last to win back to back Grand National's and as the race and handicapping systsem remains as comepitive as ever, it will take a very good horse to enter the record books with this achievement.

Key Trends from the last 10 Grand Nationals'

Many people like to look at trends when attempting to pick the winner of the grand national, some of the trends below may help you find the winner of this years race.

7 of 10 winners have been aged 9 or 10 years of age.

Only 2 favourites have won the Grand National in the past 10 runnings of the race.

9 of the last 10 winners have carried less than 11 stone

Jockey Ruby Walsh has the best record in recent times, winnign the race twice in the past ten years on Papillon in 1999 and most recently Hedgehunter in 2005.

The most successful trainer in the past years has been Nigel Twiston-Davies who has trained two winners, Earth Summit in 1998 and Bindaree in 2002.

2009 Grand National Runners

The favourite for this year's Grand National is Cloudy Lane who is trained by David McCain, the son of trainer of the famous Grand National winniner Red Rum, Ginger McCain.

Cloudy Lane looks well in at the weights and has been in excellent form so far this season. His form was franked when Comply or Die won Newcastle's Eider Chase recently and is certainly one to keep an eye on as the race draws closer.

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