BANKOS Tales Production company are airing a documentary to keep all you racing starved fans entertained, The Irish Grand National ~ Chasing a Dream, airing on TG4, Saturday, April 11th at 7.45 pm – an Easter treat.

The programme chronicles the long and illustrious history of this 150-year-old iconic race. The feature length documentary is contextualised with relevant transformative events in Irish history.

It’s told by generations of racing clans such as the Carberry, Dreaper, Moore, Mullins, Taaffe and Walsh families.

Others who relay their own accounts include Ann Ferris, David Elsworth, Dessie Scahill, Jenny Pitman, Mouse Morris, Richard Dunwoody, and Sandra Hughes, and the late Noel O’ Brien explains the handicap system.

Outstanding

The show features many outstanding racehorses such as Arkle, Brown Lad and Desert Orchid, horses who have taken their place in sport’s folklore.

Part of the allure of the race is that you don’t have to be a hot-tipped horse to win it and horses including 50/1 shot, Liberty Counsel in 2013, have proved this.

Known as the people’s race, the programme’s strong emotional stories will get you really hooked.

The show also explores the first recorded steeplechase in 1752, when two gentlemen challenged each other to race between the church steeples of Buttevant and Doneraile in Cork, hence the name steeplechasing.