How Long Is the Grand National? Distance, Time and Course
How long is the Grand National? The official Aintree distance in miles, furlongs and kilometres, typical winning times, and why the UK trip changed.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Grand National22 min read
- Official distance
- 4m 2f 74y
- In metres
- About 6,907
- Jumps
- 30
- Run-in
- 494 yards
A little under four and a third miles. The official distance of the Grand National at Aintree, as published by the British Horseracing Authority for the race in every year since the mid-2010s, is 4 miles 2 furlongs and 74 yards. In metric terms that is about 6,907 metres, or roughly 6.9 kilometres. It is the longest race in the British jumps calendar, and it takes the field nearly two full circuits of the Grand National course on the northern edge of Liverpool.
In time, the race usually lasts between nine and ten minutes from the moment the tape goes up. Good ground brings it closer to nine, soft or heavy going pushes it past ten, and the fastest time on record, Mr Frisk's 8 minutes 47.8 seconds in 1990, was set over a longer trip on fast ground that the modern race is not prepared to run on. Those are the figures. The rest of this page is about why older sources quote something different, how the distance is measured, and what four and a quarter miles over thirty fences actually takes out of a horse.
The Grand National distance in miles, furlongs, yards and kilometres
British racing still measures in furlongs, and the National's trip is given in the traditional three units. A furlong is 220 yards, an eighth of a mile, and the background on why the unit survives is set out in our explainer on how long a furlong is.
So 4 miles 2 furlongs and 74 yards works out as 7,040 yards for the miles, 440 for the furlongs and 74 left over. That is 7,554 yards in total. At 0.9144 metres to the yard, the figure is 6,907 metres, near enough.
| Unit | Grand National official distance |
|---|---|
| Miles, furlongs and yards | 4m 2f 74y |
| Furlongs | Just over 34⅓ |
| Yards | 7,554 |
| Metres | About 6,907 |
| Kilometres | About 6.9 |
| Miles as a decimal | About 4.29 |
The commonly heard shorthand is "four and a quarter miles", which is a slight understatement, or "four and a half miles", which is what the race was advertised as for most of its history and is now an overstatement by about two furlongs. Commentators still say the second from habit.
- 7554Official distance in yards
- 6907Approximate distance in metres
- 494Run-in from the last fence in yards
- 30Fences jumped
Official distance as published for the race since the mid-2010s, converted at 0.9144 metres to the yard.
No other race run under the Rules of Racing in Britain is advertised at a longer trip. Point-to-points and some cross-country events have run further at times, and the Cross Country Chase at Cheltenham is a long race over a strange course, but among the mainstream steeplechases the National stands alone at the top.
Why older sources give a longer distance: 2013 and the remeasuring
Ask anyone who watched the race in the 1980s and they will say four and a half miles. Record books printed before 2013 agree, and many older ones go further, quoting 4 miles 856 yards, a figure that sits just under four and a half miles. None of those people were wrong. The race was longer, and then it was measured differently.
The start moved forward in 2013
After the 2011 and 2012 races, both of which had fatalities, the BHA and Aintree reviewed every part of the event. One finding concerned the start. The old start was close to the stands, where the noise of a full crowd unsettled horses circling before the off, and it was followed by a long gallop to the first fence across which the field built up dangerous speed.
For the 2013 race the start was moved about 90 yards forward, away from the stands and towards the first fence. The run to the first was shortened and the advertised distance came down to about 4 miles 3½ furlongs.
The remeasuring
The second change moved no fence and no start. Through the middle of the 2010s the BHA had British jumps courses remeasured so that every race distance was calculated on a consistent line round the course. Many races across the country changed their published distance as a result, some up and some down. At Aintree the National's published figure dropped to 4 miles 2 furlongs and 74 yards. The horses ran over the same ground as before; the number on the racecard had simply been corrected.
That explains why three different distances can be found for the same race in recent memory. Each was right for its time.
A further change in 2024 confused things again for some readers. The first fence was moved 60 yards nearer the start and a standing start was introduced. The start and the winning post stayed where they were, so the official distance did not change. The field simply jumps its first fence sooner.
How a racecourse distance is measured, and why horses run further
A British race distance is not the length of the inside rail. It is measured along a line set a short, fixed distance off the inside running rail, which approximates the shortest path a horse could reasonably take while staying clear of the rail. That convention is what the remeasuring of the jumps courses applied consistently.
Two things make the real journey different from the advertised one.
Rail movements
Courses move their running rails during a season to give horses fresh ground away from the strip that earlier meetings have cut up. Moving the rail outward on a bend adds yards to every race that uses that bend, because the field has to go round a wider arc. British racecourses now publish the adjusted race distances on the day when rails have been moved, so a race advertised at one distance in the programme may be run over a slightly different one. On the National course the effect is usually small, a matter of yards, but it is real.
The ground a horse actually covers
No horse runs the measured line. A runner on the wide outside at the Canal Turn, where the course bends sharply left after the eighth fence, travels several lengths further than one hugging the inside. Horses jumping fences do not follow the ground exactly either; they rise and fall, and some drift left or right over their obstacles. A horse that is carried wide on both circuits may cover an extra furlong or more across the whole race.
The distance on the racecard, in other words, is a standard for comparison, not a promise. It lets the BHA, the handicapper and the form book compare one race with another. The horse that wins has often run a little further than the official trip and, almost always, further than a perfectly ridden horse would need to.
The mismatch matters most on a course as large as Aintree's. Two jockeys can take routes that differ by the length of a decent park-course run-in, and both be riding sensibly. Whoever saves ground on the turns has a head start the record will never show.
Why the inside is not always the shortest route
The obvious answer is to hug the inside rail all the way. At Aintree it is not that simple. The inside line at several fences is where the field congregates, which means more horses jumping close together and more chance of being brought down or baulked. At the Canal Turn the inside is where riders who have angled across the fence converge, and a horse that has jumped straight on the inner can be cut across by three or four coming in diagonally. At Becher's the inner part of the fence has historically been the steeper part of the drop.
So the National is one of the few big races in which experienced riders deliberately give away ground. Taking a wider line on the first circuit buys a clear sight of the fences, at the cost of a few extra lengths. Over 7,554 yards, a few lengths given away early can be recovered; a fall cannot. That trade-off is part of the reason winning times and official distances say so little about the journey a particular horse made.
The first circuit in sections
The Grand National course is a large, roughly triangular loop of about two and a quarter miles, run left-handed. It is crossed twice by the Melling Road, a public road that is closed and covered for race days. The field covers almost all of it twice, and the first circuit can be broken into five stretches.
The published figures for the individual sections are not part of any official measurement, and different course maps give different estimates, so this page describes each stretch by its fences and its character rather than inventing yardages.
| Section | Fences on the first circuit | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Start to the first fence | None before fence 1 | A short run since 2024, out across the Melling Road |
| The run to Becher's Brook | Fences 1 to 5 | A straight line into the country, plain fences and the first open ditch |
| Becher's to the canal side | Fences 6 to 9 | Becher's, Foinavon, the Canal Turn and Valentine's in quick succession |
| The canal side and back over the Melling Road | Fences 10 to 12 | A straight beside the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, then a long gallop home |
| The racecourse proper and the stands | Fences 13 to 16 | Two plain fences, then the Chair and the Water Jump |
- StartThe field stands behind the tape and sets off away from the stands, crossing the Melling Road
- Fences 1 to 5A straight run into the country over plain fences and the open ditch at the third
- Fence 6, Becher's BrookThe drop fence, after which the course bends left
- Fences 7 to 9Foinavon, then the Canal Turn's sharp left turn and Valentine's Brook
- Fences 10 to 12Along the canal side, then back across the Melling Road towards the stands
- Fences 13 to 16Two plain fences, then the Chair and the Water Jump in front of the stands
Fence numbers are those of the Grand National. The second circuit follows the same route as far as fence 30.
Why the first stretch matters so much
The run to the first fence is the shortest piece of the circuit and, historically, the most troublesome. A large field leaving the start fresh, each rider wanting a position, reached a fence of a kind most horses had never seen at a speed nobody would choose. Every change to the start since 2013 has been aimed at shortening this stretch or slowing it.
The canal side and the long gallop back over the Melling Road towards the stands are where the race takes its shape on the second circuit. On the first they are a breathing space. The full fence-by-fence detail is on our page about all sixteen Grand National fences.
The second circuit, the Elbow and the 494-yard run-in
The second circuit follows the first exactly as far as the fourteenth fence, which becomes the thirtieth. The field then leaves the Chair and the Water Jump on its left, unjumped. The reasons for that are set out on our page on the Chair; the short version is that the run-in is laid out to one side of them.
That makes the second circuit fourteen fences rather than sixteen, and it makes the finish one of the longest run-ins in British jump racing. From the last fence to the winning post is 494 yards, a little over two furlongs.
Most British steeplechase courses have a far shorter run from the last fence to the line. At Cheltenham the run-in is well known for climbing uphill. At Aintree the run-in is flat but long, and it includes a kink. Having jumped the last, the field bears right along a rail, then about halfway to the line the course angles back. That angle is the Elbow.
What a long run-in does
A short run-in rewards the horse that jumps the last in front. A long one gives a horse that is still galloping time to close down one that has emptied itself. The Grand National's run-in has undone leaders repeatedly. Crisp, who led the 1973 race by an enormous margin for most of the way, was caught in the final strides by Red Rum after wandering with exhaustion on the run-in. Devon Loch collapsed within sight of the post in 1956. In 2012 Neptune Collonges ran down Sunnyhillboy in the final stride to win by a nose.
For a rider, the run-in means the last fence is not the finish. A horse that jumps the thirtieth with a two-length lead still has more than two furlongs to cover at the end of more than four miles, and plenty of good jockeys will admit they kicked for home too soon.
How long the Grand National takes: record times and the effect of the going
Mr Frisk's 1990 time of 8 minutes 47.8 seconds is the fastest Grand National on record. He won it on fast ground, ridden by the amateur Marcus Armytage, over the longer trip then in use. It broke the record of 9 minutes 1.9 seconds set by Red Rum in 1973, which had itself taken a large slice off the time Golden Miller had set in 1934. At the 2025 running Mr Frisk's figure still stood. Records can fall, and a future race on unusually quick ground over a shorter trip could produce a lower time than his without being a faster performance.
The range of normal times
A modern National run on good ground is usually won in a little over nine minutes. On good to soft, add a few seconds to most of a minute. On soft or heavy ground the race slows dramatically. In 2001, run on heavy going in which only four horses completed, two of them after being remounted, Red Marauder won in just over eleven minutes.
The going matters more here than in a shorter race because its effect accumulates. A horse loses a fraction of a second per furlong in soft ground, and the National is more than thirty-four furlongs long. Fatigue makes it worse: horses that have hit the wall on heavy ground are not galloping at all for the last half-mile, more slogging through it. The descriptions racecourses use, from firm to heavy, and the GoingStick readings behind them are explained in our guide to the going in British racing.
Aintree now waters the course as needed before the April meeting, with the stated aim of avoiding fast ground. That makes a repeat of the conditions Mr Frisk enjoyed unlikely, and it is one more reason the 1990 record has lasted.
| Year | Winner | Winning time | Going and context |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1934 | Golden Miller | 9 minutes 20.4 seconds | A record that stood until 1973 |
| 1973 | Red Rum | 9 minutes 1.9 seconds | Caught Crisp on the run-in, both inside the old record |
| 1990 | Mr Frisk | 8 minutes 47.8 seconds | Fast ground over the longer trip, still the record at the 2025 running |
| 2001 | Red Marauder | Just over 11 minutes | Heavy ground, four finishers |
Why times from different eras do not compare
Three variables change from decade to decade. The trip shrank in 2013 and was remeasured again later, so a pre-2013 time and a modern one cover different ground. The fences have been modified repeatedly, with sloped take-off sides from the early 1960s and flexible cores from 2013, which affects how quickly horses can jump them. And the ground itself is now managed with the express aim of keeping it off the fast end of the scale. Comparing Golden Miller's time with a modern winner's is like comparing a mile run on cinders with one on a synthetic track. Each tells you about its own day.
Speed over the trip: average pace and the charge to the first
A National winner averages somewhere near 27 to 29 miles per hour over the whole race, depending on the time. The calculation is simple. Divide 7,554 yards by the winning time in seconds and convert. A horse that wins in exactly nine minutes has averaged about 28.6 miles per hour; one that takes nine and a half minutes, about 27.1; one that takes eleven minutes on heavy ground, about 23.4.
Mr Frisk's average, over the longer pre-2013 trip, works out at roughly 30 miles per hour. That is a stiff gallop over thirty National fences.
The early gallop
Averages hide the shape of the race. The fastest part is often the first few furlongs, when the field is fresh, the riders are jostling for position and there is little to slow them. That early pace was the target of most of the safety changes of the 2010s and 2020s. A field that arrives at the first fence going too fast, with horses that have never jumped spruce before, is how falls happen early.
The 2013 change shortened the run to the first. The 2024 changes went further: a standing start, which removes the old jogging walk-in, and the first fence moved 60 yards nearer the tape. Each change shortens the distance in which a large field can build up speed before it has to jump. Aintree and the British Horseracing Authority said plainly that reducing early pace was the aim.
The later stages are slower. By the second circuit, the field is spread out, the horses are tiring and the fences are being met more carefully. The final two furlongs on the run-in are usually run well below the race average, by horses that are giving everything they have left.
Against the other long races in Britain and Ireland
The Grand National is not the only race with "National" in its name, and it is not the only long-distance steeplechase. Every major jumps nation has one, and the British and Irish calendar has a cluster of long handicap chases through the winter and spring.
| Race | Course | Approximate distance | Obstacles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand National | Aintree | 4 miles 2 furlongs 74 yards | Thirty spruce-dressed National fences |
| Midlands Grand National | Uttoxeter | A little over 4 miles | Regulation steeplechase fences |
| Scottish Grand National | Ayr | Just under 4 miles | Regulation steeplechase fences |
| Welsh Grand National | Chepstow | About 3 miles 6½ furlongs | Regulation steeplechase fences |
| Irish Grand National | Fairyhouse | About 3 miles 5 furlongs | Regulation steeplechase fences |
| Cheltenham Gold Cup | Cheltenham | About 3 miles 2½ furlongs | Twenty-two regulation fences |
| Cross Country Chase | Cheltenham | About 3¾ miles | Banks, hedges, ditches and fences |
The approximate distances are rounded from the published trips, which have themselves been changed by remeasurement over the years. They are good enough to show the order.
The shape is clear. The other Nationals run between roughly three and a half miles and a little over four. Aintree's sits above them all, and its obstacles are a different kind altogether. The Gold Cup, the most prestigious race of the jumps season, is about a mile shorter and run at level weights, which is why the best staying chaser of a season seldom takes on the National.
The Cross Country Chase at the Cheltenham Festival is a different curiosity. It is shorter than the National, but its route winds through banks, hedges and ditches that no other British course offers, and horses that perform well in it have sometimes gone on to run well at Aintree. Our guide to the Cheltenham Cross Country Chase covers its course in detail.
What four and a quarter miles asks of a horse
A horse that wins over three miles has shown it stays three miles. It has not shown it stays four and a quarter, and the gap between the two is wider than a mile and a quarter sounds.
Most good staying chasers in Britain spend their careers at around three miles. The National asks them to run another nine furlongs or so, over fences much bigger than they usually jump, after a first circuit at a pace set by thirty-odd runners. Some of them run out of energy at the canal side second time; some at the thirtieth; some halfway up the run-in. A horse whose form shows it finishing strongly over three miles three furlongs is a better guide than one that has merely won over three. Even that is not proof. The National is the only test of whether a horse truly stays the National trip.
Ages
Horses must be at least seven to run, a minimum raised from six after the 2011 review. Modern winners have mostly been between eight and eleven, the years in which a chaser combines enough experience of fences with enough speed left to keep up early. Much older winners exist in the race's history but are rare in recent decades. Twelve-year-olds have won within the past quarter-century; thirteen-year-olds have tried more often than they have succeeded.
The first circuit decides the second
What happens on the first circuit often determines who is still galloping on the second. A horse ridden too close to a fast pace burns energy it will need four miles later. One that is held up too far behind risks being caught in trouble at the fences, where loose horses and fallers do the damage. The riders who win the National tend to describe the first circuit as an exercise in staying out of trouble and conserving energy, and the second as the actual race.
Jumping when tired
Stamina on the flat and stamina over fences are not the same thing. Every jump costs a horse energy: it has to gather itself, rise, stretch and then pick up its stride again on landing. Over thirty fences that cost is paid thirty times, and the later payments are the expensive ones. A horse that has been jumping fluently for three miles starts to get lower and closer to its fences as it tires, and a tired horse that gets close to a National fence does not brush through the spruce. It hits it.
That is why the second circuit's smaller fences catch out more horses than their size suggests. The thirteenth and fourteenth, which most runners skip over on the first circuit with the Chair in view, become the twenty-ninth and thirtieth and are met by horses that have nothing left with which to correct a mistake. The National's distance and its fences cannot be separated. A horse that would stay four and a quarter miles on the flat might not stay it over thirty National obstacles, and a bold jumper with slightly less stamina sometimes lasts longer than a careful one with more, because it wastes less on each fence.
Weight over distance
The National is also a handicap, so most runners carry a weight that is not their natural racing weight. A pound matters more at four and a quarter miles than at two, because the burden is carried for twice as long and over many more obstacles. Handicappers working over long distances reckon a pound to be worth more in lengths than it is over a sprint. How the weights for this race are set, and the limits on them, is a separate subject.
Where the National course sits inside Aintree
Aintree has more than one course. The Grand National course is the large outer loop, and inside it are the Mildmay course, used for ordinary steeplechases over regulation fences, and a hurdle course. The three share the finishing straight in front of the stands but otherwise run on separate lines.
The Melling Road cuts across the outer triangle. The National field crosses it twice on each circuit: once heading out into the country after the start and the first-circuit stands area, and once coming back towards the racecourse proper after the twelfth fence. On race days the road is closed and covered so horses can cross it. The point near the Anchor Bridge where the field crosses back is a landmark commentators use for the run home on the second circuit.
The inner courses are much tighter. A two-mile hurdle race on the Mildmay or hurdle course does not go near Becher's Brook or the canal. That is why the National fences are raced over only a few times a year, in the April and early-winter meetings, while the rest of Aintree's fixtures use the inner tracks. The racecourse's layout as a whole, with its stands, enclosures and the April meeting's three days, is covered in our Aintree racecourse guide.
How the trip has changed since 1839
The first race usually counted as a Grand National, won by Lottery in 1839, was not run on anything a modern racegoer would recognise as a racecourse. Much of the route crossed farmland, some of it ploughed. The obstacles were the hedges, banks and brooks that already divided the fields, with a stone wall in front of the stands. Riders were told roughly which way to go. The distance was "about four miles" or more, depending on the line taken.
Over the next half-century the course was steadily formalised. The stone wall gave way to water within the race's first few years. Ploughed land was laid to turf. Natural obstacles were replaced by made fences on roughly the same sites. By the 1880s the course was a railed turf circuit laid out much as it is today, and the distance settled into the traditional figure of about four and a half miles, often printed as 4 miles 856 yards.
That figure stood for a long time. Changes to the fences, the take-off sides, the field size and the weights came and went over the twentieth century while the trip stayed, near enough, the same.
| Period | Change to the trip |
|---|---|
| 1839 | A run across open farmland, including plough, with natural obstacles |
| From the 1840s | Made fences replace banks and hedges; the Water Jump replaces the stone wall |
| By the 1880s | A railed turf circuit; the traditional distance of about four and a half miles settles |
| 2013 | Start moved about 90 yards forward, away from the stands |
| Mid-2010s | Remeasurement of British jumps courses lowers the published figure to 4m 2f 74y |
| 2024 | Standing start and first fence moved 60 yards nearer; official distance unchanged |
The pattern of the last fifteen years is that the distance has been changed for safety and accuracy rather than tradition. The start was moved to calm the horses and shorten the charge, and the remeasurement corrected an old figure. Nobody has proposed making the race shorter for its own sake, and the National's identity as the longest test in British jump racing is not under threat. What has changed is how precisely that test is described. Our other explainers on the race and on British sport more widely start from the England hub, and shorter pieces appear on the blog.