Staff jump to get fences ready for Aintree

Mar 27 2008 by Ben Schofield, Liverpool Daily Post

AINTREE’s groundsmen are working day and night to ready the course for this year’s John Smith’s Grand National.

The 16 fences that make the world’s greatest steeple chase were being built in earnest yesterday.

It is a long-held tradition for Aintree to source branches from surplus trees in South Cumbria’s Grizedale Forest.

Head groundsman Mark Aynsley and his team trucked in 150 tonnes of spruce branches for the fences.

Mark, 31, said: “There’s a lot of fence building going on – all the National jumps are being built at the moment. They are progressing nicely.”

He said he was keeping a close eye on the weather in an effort ensure the ground is good for the Grand National meeting, which starts next Thursday.

Aintree has its own weather station that can compare this year’s conditions to what it was like in previous years.

Former-head green keeper at Leasowe golf course, Mark added: “We also use a direct link with the Met Office.

“We have got it covered but you can have as many eyes in the sky as you like and it can change.” He said he was currently monitoring in the soil temperature at the course.

It is five degrees cooler than this time last year, which Mark said is “knocking the turf a little bit back” because it is too cold for the grass to grow.

But, he added, the warmer weather that is forecast should help the ground “rectify itself”.

Mark, who has worked at the course for 15 months, said his favourite fence was The Chair, the 15th on the course and located just before the water jump and directly in front of the grandstands.

“You’ve got to look at The Chair in awe – it’s a very big jump,” he said. “We build it out of Norway spruce, unlike the other fences, for the aesthetics.

“I quite like the water jump too. I like the fact that there’s a natural living privet hedge under it.”

This year’s meeting, which takes place on April 3, 4 and 5, is expected to draw more than the 150,000 racegoers who went last year.

RACING: PAGES 31-32

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