Grand National headline event sees first fall for former champion

A fall has taken place in the first half of the Grand National 2024 headline race.

Corach Rambler, ridden by Derek Foxwas taking part in the 34-runner Aintree race on Saturday afternoon when the horse leapt over the first fence, seeing Mr Fox fall off. Corach Rambler won the championship last year and was, for most of the run-up to the weekend, considered a favourite to win this year.

The Grand National is renowned as being an incredibly challenging our-mile and two-and-a-half furlong race featuring 30 jumps- 16 fences with 14 of those being jumped twice.

Read more: Grand National 2024 live results, places and updates from Aintree

In an attempt to reduce issues during races, organisers reduced the number of those taking part from 40 to 34. The first fence was also moved forward while the 11th fence was lowered.

The Jockey Club previously said in a statement: "We leave no stone unturned in providing world-class standards of welfare for our participants and undertake a review after every Randox Grand National. These reviews look at a wide range of factors and the learnings from the process drives a number of changes, large and small, annually.

"In October we announced that one of the changes being made from 2024 would involve bringing forward the start time of the race, which has been 5.15pm since 2016. This was a decision we took after a number of participants and other racing stakeholders raised concerns about the long build-up to the race throughout the day and heightened tension as a result."

It is estimated that more than 600 million people watched the big race worldwide across 140 countries, including 7.5 million ITV viewers in the UK alone. According to industry research conducted by the Betting and Gaming