The Grand National - The Boat Race and the FA Cup semi final.

The Grand National - The Boat Race and the FA Cup semi final.

Surely we'll be spoilt for choice this weekend. We'll be breathing the richly sweet air of England and wondering whether the country will know of anything more stimulating, eye catching and more rousingly enjoyable than the three sporting occasions that are about to set before the sporting connoisseurs. This is the time when they'll be getting their teeth into horse racing, football and university rowing. It's enough to whet anybody's appetite.

Around a million breakfast tables this morning the good people of Britain will pick up a pin, open up the Racing Post or the national newspapers hoping that maybe this could be their day to pick the winner of the Grand National. It is one of those ritualistic, fateful and cherishable sporting days when any result is possible and the ones who have a feeling in their gut, find that a harmless gamble on our stately looking horse of choice could be both profitable and emotionally rewarding.

In bookmakers across the country, the punters and experts, the aficionados and the impartial observers will be crowding around the TV screens, betting slips perched precariously between their fingers, one eye on the race and the other nervously eyeing the possibility of substantial riches. We do this every year and it's part of the British DNA, our glorious sporting heritage, our colourful history and the way in which Britain celebrates its traditional springtime events.

Springtime in England means the Grand National, the rumbling, thundering, galloping, gallivanting, at times almost evidently terrifying horse racing spectacular, where thousands of hardened race goers will pin themselves against the Aintree railings in the way they've always done. They'll jump up and down with effusive excitement, clutching onto their hats in eager anticipation and then breathlessly flinging their trilbies into the air as if they simply didn't care.

The Grand National, now deep into its 160th year, will open up its best vantage points and the students of the steeplechase will do what the fine, upstanding citizens of Liverpool have always done because you can't beat a good, old fashioned punt on the most famous meeting of equine minds. They will nod knowingly at each other and then traipse around the paddocks and hospitality areas of that grand old racecourse. It will be rather like re-visiting an old friend because that's what happens when familiar faces and life time acquaintances meet up and catch up with each other.

So it is that the Grand National , in all its smartly dressed glory and splendour, will set out the ultimate challenge to man,woman and horse. It is four miles of some of the most testing and demanding fences in British horse racing. It is that gripping cavalry charge, a gruelling and breathtaking occasion where stamina and endurance find themselves up against the most dangerous obstacles of them all. It is the most unenviably daunting of all horse races, where the height of Beecher's Brook and the Chair have long been feared and dreaded for as long as any of us can remember.

Today's favourite at Aintree is Tiger Roll, heavily fancied to win back to back Grand Nationals. And we all know who the last horse to do that was. It is never easy to back the winner in the National if only because this is the one race of the year where the most improbable odds on the unlikeliest of horses can leave you unexpectedly healthier in the wallet than you ever thought you would be.

But one horse though captured the hearts and minds of every neutral onlooker. Back in the early 1970s Red Rum, with an almost effortless nonchalance, won two successive Grand Nationals without so much as a desperate pant or gasp for breath. You see Red Rum was the most beautifully groomed and admirably trained horse ever to step onto Aintree's vast acres. Red Rum had class, a perfect temperament and instinctively knew when to hit the front and just sprint to the winning line. We adored Red Rum because he made everything look so easy, a horse with genuine animal magnetism, an infectious personality and the most gentle temperament you could wish to see.

In 1973 both Red Rum and a horse called Crisp were neck and neck, streaking away from the rest of the field and approaching the final fences of the Grand National as if their lives depended on it. Then Crisp made that daring breakaway towards the winning line. We were convinced that Crisp would eventually stretch away in  convincing style and win by a country mile. Coming up to that make or break last fence though, Crisp looked as though it had wrapped up the Grand National. He was so far ahead of Red Rum that we'd have probably required the services of a search party to find Red Rum.

Then Crisp, in a heart rending display of exhaustion, literally ran out of steam, almost limping and staggering, slowing and tiring, seemingly unable to find anything in the tank. What we witnessed next was sporting drama at its most moving. Poor Crisp almost ground to a halt while Red Rum heroically thrust out its neck, nose flaring and ears seriously primed for the most popular Grand National victory for many years to come. It was sport at its most raw, intense and thrillingly unforgettable.

Meanwhile at Wembley, both Manchester City, Brighton, Wolves and Watford will be battling gallantly for a place in this year's FA Cup Final. For those of us who still retain a soft spot for the underdog an FA Cup Final between Watford and Brighton has resounding echoes of the FA Cup Final between Portsmouth and Cardiff City when Portsmouth recalled the Pompey chimes of the Second World War.

Sadly and realistically the chances are that this will not be the case. If all goes according to pre match plan Manchester City, now an almost supernatural force, will return to Wembley for an FA Cup Final six years after relegated Wigan had shocked the life out of them with a last gasp Ben Watson winning goal. This may well come to be regarded as a pivotal turning point for City for since then City have swept aside all comers with some of the most delightfully intuitive football ever seen in modern day football.

Brighton,for their part will have bitter memories of the FA Cup Final. When Gordon Smith, in front of goal, fluffed his lines and missed an open goal for Brighton against Ron Atkinson's high flying Manchester United in the 1983 FA Cup Final, they may have resigned themselves to the fact that never would they get remotely as close to lifting an FA Cup. And yet they have. The irony is that the other half of Manchester is lying in wait for them so maybe the Seagulls will have to wait a while  longer.

And then finally there's the Boat Race. Now here is what England used to do at Saturday tea time just before the football classified results and the pools coupon check. Once again the intellectual powerhouses of Cambridge and Oxford will line up by the side of the River Thames trying hard to  outwit and use every psychological trick in the book. When two of our most decorated universities go head to head on the rowing waters of London, you can be sure that there will be no love lost.

This year that former Olympic shining light and all time great James Cracknell will be climbing into a boat again, bones possibly aching but still willing. His predecessor Sir Steven Redgrave once declared that if you ever saw him taking part in another Olympic last hurrah four years later, you would have his permission to tell him exactly what you thought of him. Cracknell has stepped out of retirement though and back into the Boat Race as the oldest ever oarsman. It is hard to believe though that this is the last time you'll see Cracknell in a rowing race.

Tomorrow the respective boats of Oxford and Cambridge will lock oars by Putney and Hammersmith, the flag will go up, ancient grudges and rivalries renewed and off they'll go. They'll heave and ho, push and pull, thrashing and splashing the churning waters with all their heart and soul. Their faces will be twisted with pain, etched with suffering, cheeks red with the sheer effort of it all. Two boats will go ploughing through the Thames, often level pegging but then either Oxford and Cambridge will stretch every sinew, every muscle snapping and cracking privately before one of the crews makes one grandstanding spurt for the winning line. Oh for this sporting springtime in England.