Grand National lease in 1848. One century later, the Topham family bought the course outright. Later in the century the race was the setting of a thriller by the popular novelist Henry Hawley Smart. For three years during the First World War, while Aintree Racecourse was taken over by the War Office, an alternative race was run at Gatwick Racecourse, a disused course on land now occupied by Gatwick Airport. The first of these races, in 1916, was called the Racecourse Association Steeplechase, and in 1917 and 1918 the race was called the War National Steeplechase. The races at Gatwick are not
Steeplechase (horse racing) is held in Nashville, Tennessee. Beginning in 1941, with one year off during World War II, the race has been run continuously at Percy Warner Park on a course inspired by Marcellus Frost and designed by William duPont. The Queens Cup Steeplechase is held annually on the last Saturday of April at Brooklandwood, a farm and estate in Mineral Springs, North Carolina, about from Charlotte. The Breeders' Cup Grand National Steeplechase (formerly known as the American Grand National) is held each October at the Far Hills Races in Far Hills, New Jersey and draws about 50,000 spectators for a single