AINTREE RACECOURSE
Paddock Preview – Aintree
Course: Aintree Racecourse – Ladies Day of the Grand National Meeting
🎫 Ticket & Value: £55 – Festival Zone
👀 Track View: ⭐️⭐️
🍔 Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🍺 Guinness: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⭕️ Parade Ring: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🏇 Runners and Riders: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎉 Atmosphere: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🪩 Entertainment: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⭐️ Overall Experience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
👍🏻 Best for: Atmosphere 🎉
Welcome to The Paddock Preview Episode 20, where we visited Aintree Racecourse on Ladies Day of the Grand National meeting to review the Festival Zone ticket. Based in Merseyside, this stunning racecourse hosts the famous three-day festival every April, with the star of the show—the Grand National—taking place on Saturday afternoon. Other meetings at the venue are held in May, October, November, and December. It’s a left-handed triangular track with 16 fences. The course’s capacity is 75,000 spectators, making it the largest in the UK, and you really do get a sense of the crowd size when you’re there—it’s a fantastic sight looking over a vast sea of people. The Festival Zone includes access to world-class racing, great live music and entertainment, food and drink, and full access to the massive parade ring.
The track view from this enclosure is slightly prohibitive. Although you can get in line with the winning post—which is a bonus, giving you viewing of the closing stages of each race—most of the views are at rail level, so seeing the far side of the track isn’t possible. However, there are big screens with excellent visibility, so you won’t miss a minute of the action. Some of the bookie stands are positioned along the front of the rail, which can also obstruct your view. To secure the best vantage point, arrive early before each race and get right to the front—this gives you an unobstructed view of the entire home straight.
There is a food court-style area located a short walk from the parade ring, which hosts a decent variety of options including crispy duck wraps, tacos, The Dirty Chicken Co., filthy fries, burgers, hog roasts, Greek gyros, and even a Costa Coffee stall. The queues were sizeable all day, but if timed well, you could grab something fairly quickly—though you may have to sacrifice watching one of the races. We opted for The Dirty Chicken Co. and chose the strips and fries box with katsu curry sauce and slaw. It can be served with or without spring onions and peppers—we went for spring onions. The price came in at £13.95, which is quite expensive for three chicken strips and chips, but the katsu sauce had an authentic taste, the food was piping hot, and the presentation was solid.
Moving onto the Guinness, priced at £7.80 a pint—on par with Cheltenham Festival. It’s still the most expensive we’ve encountered, but given that Aintree is one of the top three jumps racing meets alongside Cheltenham and Punchestown, you might factor the price into your budget. The Guinness was poured using the correct process, with a decent settle time—though not quite ideal, which is forgivable given how busy the bars were. The taste, however, was fantastic: creamy, with a great head, and very drinkable—no complaints from us while soaking up the sun in the afternoon. There is also a Guinness E-Bar based trackside where you can pour your own pints which is great to see and generally had smaller queues than the other bars.
The pre-parade and parade ring setup at Aintree is superb. The pre-parade ring is located on a higher level behind the also-elevated weighing room. This gives you the chance to watch the horses during their final preparations before they walk down a chute that bends around the side of the weighing room into the parade ring. You get a great sense of the layout by following this walk. The parade ring is massive, built to accommodate the large National field. On one side, there’s a large set of curved viewing steps that flank both sides of the ring. This is where the top three horses from each race return to be hosed down, and where the winning connections are interviewed. A standout feature here is the set of central steps that jockeys descend from the weighing room into the parade ring—something we’ve not seen at other tracks. It really adds to the aura of the jockeys as they mentally prepare and take in the good-luck messages from the crowd. On the opposite side, there’s a grassy bank and stools along the rail, giving a great alternate view. There’s also a parade ring bar and bookie stands, so you can do everything you need without missing a moment.
The quality of runners and riders was excellent, with top jockeys including Paul Townend, Harry Cobden, Sean Bowen, and Ben Jones, as well as top amateurs like Patrick Mullins. While some of the Cheltenham stars aren’t targeted at this meeting due to the different running styles and ground conditions, many do run at both, and the Irish send over a strong contingent—particularly Willie Mullins, who was looking to snatch the British trainers’ title from under Dan Skelton’s nose. There’s plenty of Grade 1 action across the meeting—the best of the best.
Now, the atmosphere on Ladies Day at Aintree is absolutely unreal. A few punters described it as the Met Gala of the racing calendar. The ladies were dressed to impress in stunning outfits, all ready to enjoy a fantastic day in the sun. The crowds were huge and buzzing from the moment the gates opened. The party atmosphere was infectious, and the friendly nature of the Scousers really shone through—cheering horses home and dancing in between races to the various live acts.
This brings us nicely to the entertainment in the Festival Zone, which is top tier. Upon arrival, you’re greeted by a range of live bands across the site, getting the punters going with singalong classics. We made our way straight to the festival tent—a huge space with an excellent sound system, featuring a DJ, live saxophonist, percussionist, and dancers around the perimeter, encouraging racegoers to let their hair down. The Boxpark setup on-site also had a fantastic vibe (especially familiar to those from London). After the final race, everyone piled into the tent to see the day out—hopefully after backing a few winners. The music was pumping, and the vibes were high—a perfect way to cap off a class day.
All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and would seriously recommend this day as an absolute must in your racing calendar. It ticks every box for every type of racegoer: top-class racing, elite runners and riders, gorgeous weather, and a fantastic party atmosphere.
That’s The Paddock Preview for Aintree—where should we head next?
