Aintree Racecourse fear into the most professional of jockeys. All fences bar the water jump are covered with spruce, unlike at any other course in British National Hunt racing. Four other races take place over the National fences. These are the Topham Chase (formerly known as the John Hughes Trophy Chase) and the Fox Hunters' Chase at the Grand National meeting, and the Grand Sefton Handicap Chase and Becher Chase in the December meeting. Within the large National course there is also the smaller Mildmay course containing hurdles and fences. These fences are made of traditional National Hunt material. The National and
Aintree railway station to and on to Exchange until they were withdrawn by the British Transport Commission on 2 April 1951. The main line via Walton was also used by longer distance local & express trains from Exchange to , Blackpool, Scotland and East Lancashire in addition to the intensive electric commuter service and some of these also stopped at Aintree, especially when the nearby race course hosted the famous Grand National meeting. The Ormskirk line was not included in the list of routes to be closed in the 1963 Beeching Report (unlike the other two routes from Liverpool Exchange), but the route