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Home , Aintree Racecourse, ITV Racing, John Barnes, Michael Owen

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Grand National Digital Content Objectives • Aintree wanted to use the attraction to the Grand National and create varied but targeted digital content to help drive ticket sales but also help position the sport in a positive light, especially around horse welfare. This is year one of an ongoing initiative so the objectives of each video were to create positive awareness, drive engagement across our channels and connect with new audiences. Horse Welfare • With the horseracing and sporting world watching Aintree in April, six years since a fatality in the Grand National and £1.5 million spent of welfare measures, the racecourse wanted to use this national and international reach to help push the positive welfare agenda forward and show the positivity and care of horses behind the scenes, both at a yard and at Aintree and other UK racecourses Katie Walsh videos • Aim to show behind the scenes at the top three Irish trainers during the preparations for the Grand National and help raise awareness of the Grand National Festival and show the extent of preparations and care of the horse Grand National Memories • Position the Grand National as a race that the nation stops to watch – everyone has a favorite memory - and show the video at the GN Weights Lunch in front of 300 people of British Racing and as well as push through Aintree and social media channels Grand National Thursday and Ladies Day • One of the themes for Grand National Thursday was ‘Celebrating Sport’, Aintree aimed to create first class content with key Merseyside sportspeople to help promote the day locally. With Ladies Day being a key day in the social and racing calendar, Aintree wanted to position a video 2 which showed the ‘belonging’ of the day that is very much owned by the people of Liverpool Delivery

Horse Welfare • Two videos were commissioned in March 2019 – one at Grand National winning yard, Oliver Sherwood and the other at itself. Oliver and his team talked to Alice Fox-Pitt about the many aspects of equine husbandry involved in ensuring that their horses receive the highest possible standards of care and attention. The idea wasn’t to talk about the Grand National but use the National as a portal to promote the great work stable staff, nutritionists, assistant trainers, farriers etc do behind the scenes for the care of the horse. At Aintree, Andrew Tulloch and Mark Aynsley spoke to Nick Luck about the £1.5 million that has been invested at Aintree to ensure the safest ground is available to be raced on for the world’s greatest steeplechase, regardless of the weather and climate conditions. • A specific section on the Aintree, Jockey Club website was set up to ‘house’ and promote the videos. The two videos were also broken down into several smaller pieces to promote on social media forums across the Jockey Club • ITV Racing broadcast both videos on Grand National Thursday and Grand National Day Katie Walsh - Grand National horses • Aintree Ambassador, Katie Walsh provides unique behind the scenes footage of preparations of Grand National runners from Willie Mullins, Jessica Harrington and Gordon Elliot’s yard prior to the Grand National. Filmed, edited and pushed through Aintree’s and The Jockey Club’s social media - all videos used on Ladies Day and Grand National Day through ITV Racing Grand National Memories • In order to try to highlight the scale of the love of the Grand National, Aintree spoke to some famous faces, such as Dame Judy Dench, Rory Bremner, and Sir , to produce a emotive, passionate and funny video talking about their favorite memories of the GN. The video was used at the Grand National Weights Lunch in Liverpool to 300 guests from British Racing and Liverpool, pushed through Aintree and The Jockey Club’s social media channels and used by ITV Racing Grand National Thursday and Ladies Day videos • A new theme of Grand National Thursday was celebrating Merseyside Sport in 2019 – Aintree spoke to a number of key sportspeople for the Thursday video including Sir Kenny Dalglish, , Michael Owen and Sam Quek. The Ladies Day 3 content projected the sense of belonging and ownership that Liverpudlians have for the day Results

Katie Walsh – Grand National Runners • Katie Walsh rides out at Gordon Elliot’s yard– CLICK HERE • Katie at Jessica Harrington’s yard seeing Magic of Light, Harrington’s first GN runner – CLICK HERE • Katie riding out Pleasant Company at Willie Mullins yard – 1 - CLICK HERE; 2 – CLICK HERE; 3 – CLICK HERE Grand National Memories (click on image)

Horse Welfare at home • Aintree and Alice Fox-Pitt speak to The Owner, The Trainer, The Stable Staff, Farrier, Jockey, Nutritionist and Training Gallops Manager - CLICK HERE to watch all individual videos Welfare at a Racecourse – Aintree • Turf and Ground - the famous turf at Aintree plays a huge part in assisting and improving the welfare of the horses that race on it – CLICK HERE to here Head Groundsman, Mark Aysley talk about the care of the ground GN Thursday and Ladies Day (click on images) • Racing and Facilities - huge improvements have been made in recent years at Aintree Racecourse to improve the welfare of horses racing there. Changes introduced since 2012 include adapting and rebuilding the fences, facilities and stables – CLICK HERE to hear Head of Racing, Andrew Tulloch 4 We split the distribution of the Grand National Supporting Information Thursday ecomm including the main video so that we were able to analyse the impact of geolocation with regards to interaction. Digital Media Stats Grand National Memories cont. Anyone that lived within a 15 mile radius of Welfare Rory Bremner (Donald Trump) the racecourse received the exact same email • Facebook: 49,906 people reached, • Facebook: 5,522 people reached but within a separate send, and the difference 4,249 engagements • : 10,412 impressions in results were massive. The click through rate • Twitter: 10,822 impressions Dame Judi Dench and Michael Owen for this ecomm was 9% compared to 4% for • Facebook: 5,912 people reached (organic) the wider database send. Katie Walsh videos • Twitter: 6,596 impressions Willie Mullins Grand National Thursday (Celebrating • YouTube: 1,800 views Merseyside Sport) • Twitter: 50,217 impressions • Facebook: 10,279 people reached. 1,097 Gordon Elliot engagements • YouTube: 18,000 views • Twitter: 75,070 impressions. Total views • Twitter: 59,744 impressions of video: 15.4k ITV Racing ITV Racing - Jessica Harrington Ladies Day (#fabulousfriday) Welfare - click click above image • Twitter: 22,900 impressions • Facebook: 40,963 people reached. 1,000 above image & & scroll to 23:44 engagements scroll to 1:44:50 – – 25:17 & 57:45 – Grand National Memories • Twitter: 17,661 impressions. Total views of 1:48:15 and 58:20 What does the GN mean to Liverpool? video: 2.2k 1:48.:40 – 1:49:30 • Facebook: 7,616 people reached Twitter: 19,015 impressions Ed Chamberlin “Horse Welfare is of paramount importance to the sport and specifically Michael Owen and John Barnes Aintree and the Grand National as this is the biggest spotlight for our sport. We were • Facebook: 3,549 people reached delighted that Aintree wanted to showcase the immense care and attention that goes on behind the scenes for the horse at yards and racecourses and were very pleased with the Twitter: 4,496 impressions 5 quality of the production of the videos. We hope to continue their great initiative next year.”