1843 Grand National 1843 Grand National The 1843 Grand Liverpool Steeplechase was the fifth official annual running of a handicap steeplechase, later to become known as the Grand National Steeplechase handicap horse race which took place at Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool on Wednesday 1 March 1843 and attracted a field of 16 runners. Although recorded by the press at the time as the eighth running of the Grand Liverpool, which was renamed the Grand National in 1847, the first three runnings were poorly organised affairs and are not currently officially recognised. This year the race was run as a handicap, with horses weighted
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