the Grand National in past years, each shown with its performance as at its racing prime: it is on Youtube. Its winner was Red Rum by less than a length, having just passed Manifesto.) In December 2020 Randox Health announced they had extended their sponsorship for a further 5 years which will make them sponsors to 2026. In 2021, Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the race, on the horse Minella Times. The course The Grand National is run over the National Course at Aintree and consists of two laps of 16 fences, the first 14 of which are jumped twice. Horses completing the race cover a distance of , the longest of any National Hunt race in Britain. As part of a review of safety following the 2012 running of the event, from 2013 to 2015 the start was moved forward away from the crowds and grandstands, reducing the race distance by from the historical . The course has one of the longest run-ins from the final fence of any steeplechase, at . The Grand National was designed as a cross-country steeplechase when it was first officially run in 1839. The runners started at a lane on the edge of the racecourse and raced away from the course out over open countryside towards the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The gates, hedges, and ditches that they met along the way were flagged to provide them with the obstacles to be jumped along the way with posts and rails erected at the two points where the runners jumped a brook. The runners returned towards the racecourse by running along the edge of the canal before re-entering the course at the opposite end. The runners then ran the length of the racecourse before embarking on a second circuit before finishing in front of the stands. The majority of the race, therefore, took place not on the actual Aintree Racecourse but instead in the adjoining countryside. That countryside was incorporated into the modern course but commentators still often refer to it as "the country". Fences There are 16 fences on the National Course topped with spruce from the Lake District. The cores of 12 fences were rebuilt in 2012 and they are now made of a flexible plastic material which is more forgiving than the traditional wooden core fences. They are still topped with at least of spruce for the