The world's most famous steeplechase has had more than animal rights activists interfere with timetabling over the years. In 1993 the Grand National was called a no-race after a false start. In 1997, the race was postponed an extra 2 days due to a bomb scare. In 2001, the bog-like going ensured only two horses - Red Marauder and Smarty - completed without remounting. Not to be outdone, this year it was a funeral of the highest order (that of Pope John Paul II) and the need to shift a royal wedding to the following day that played havoc with TV scheduling. The Big Race was delayed 25 minutes on Saturday afternoon to allow the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles to share the necessary "I do's", and finally the race was run and won. An Irish horse took the honours - the 7-1 favourite Hedgehunter trained by Willie Mullins- who had fallen at the final fence just 12 months ago. Royal Auclair ran second, with Simply Gifted third and It Takes Time fourth.

This time last year (as part of a series I was researching on expatriate Australian race callers) I interviewed UK-based commentator Jim McGrath. Jim's name will be familiar to you if you listened to his call of the 2003 G2 King's Stand and the G1 Golden Jubilee Stakes at Ascot. Those were the races that collared Choisir international fame, and courtesy of Jim - an association with the immortal Phar Lap.

When I caught up with Jim he had just returned from calling his 12th Grand National; his 7th as senior commentator.

"Calling the Grand National is very different to any other race," he said. "It’s the ultimate test of a commentator - 40 runners over four and a half miles and all sorts of things going on. You have to know your colours, know your horses, your jockeys and of course the course and apply the hope that your memory is up to it.

“There is no doubt that you have to prepare for it a lot more [than calling on the flat]. There are a lot more components and you are also very conscious that it’s the widest racing audience that you will ever get.

"On Saturday [2004] we had 10.3 million viewers – domestically that was 69% of the viewing audience at that time of the day which is quite staggering – and worldwide we had about 600 million estimated so it is quite a big responsibility to get it right and you are very conscious of the fact that most of the people watching are not racing people – they are once a year punters or viewers and you have to all the time just be conscious of the fact that you can't speak in technical racing terms, you are going to have to be far more general in your descriptions. At the same time it’s the ultimate challenge for a commentator and you obviously want to have a crack at it and you want to achieve a good call”.

He also mentioned that 'no race' in 1993 which, coincidentally, was also the first year he was involved in calling the National.

“They basically had to abandon it as there was a mix-up at the start – they signaled a false start and the jockeys kept on going – half the field didn’t realize it was a false start and they completed almost one full circuit of the track jumping 16 fences then there was another group of about 6-8 others who went on the second circuit. It was a complete farce and it was declared a no race.

"At the same time we of course commentated as if it was a race realizing the drama that was there, uncertain of whether there was a rule that could be invoked to sort of re-run the race later. It was a complete sense of uncertainty - but all 3 of us –Peter O’Sullevan , John Hanmer and myself – we all commentated our leg of it and it was a very, very disappointing day – a very sad day in the history of the Grand National. But at the same time it was a pretty amazing introduction –and it was very, very good on the first day to realize there is no script, it is completely unpredictable – as they say you just have to expect the unexpected at the Grand National.”

Fortunately there were no such troubles in 2005.

From a marketing perspective the Racing Post's coverage and, in particular, their online video library deserves a special mention. The dedicated Grand National sub-section included a video library canvassing: Horse-by-horse video form guide, tipster forum, interviews with connections, replay of last year's race and the top 10 Grand Nationals.