Sports have been around for a long time now. Cricket, golf, weightlifting, martial arts, and wrestling are among the most antique. Even some athletics competitions have been performed seemingly forever.
However, horse racing not only is one of the oldest competitions in the planet; but also, it is one of the finest, classiest, and demanding disciplines around: it takes harmony and an invisible rider-animal connection. Thoroughbred racing is now a universal proposition, but what about horse racing with obstacles?
The 2018 Grand National, England’s most famous competition in the field, is right around the corner. If you are currently on British territory, you should have no problem watching the meeting with your TV or via online streaming. How about foreign people interested in the event?
Because of licensing issues, people from abroad can’t enjoy an online streaming feed of British television. Geo-blocking messages will appear if you try to enter a UK site if you are not physically in the country. But VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, provide ways to gaining access to these services by letting users borrow an English IP address.
England’s most famous horse race
The Grand National can be defined as a nation-wide hunt horse race held at the Aintree Racecourse, located in Liverpool, once a year since 1839, which makes it one of the oldest competition in the history of organized sports.
It is currently the most highly prized horse jump race on European soil, with over £1 million given in last year’s competition. The event is more than a sport and more than just a dash: it is a British tradition, one trespassed from generations to generations since the XIX century.
In fact, the 2018 edition of the Grand National will be the 171st edition of the annual race. It has been renamed, because of sponsorship partnerships, the Randox Health 2018 Grand National. This year’s competition will take place on Saturday, April 14, but the festivities will begin with the “Opening Day” on Thursday, April 12. The “Ladies Day” will follow on Friday.
People often say that horses have to be tough, disciplined and intelligent since they have to jump 30 enormous obstacles and gallop through a hard course of 6,907 km, which is a kilometer and a half more than the usual distance in other similar tests.
The race consists of giving two laps to the circuit of Aintree, with 16 obstacles in the first and 14 in the second. The chair and the water jump aren’t present on the second lap. There can be up to 40 horses in competition, which together with those who continue galloping without a rider to the finish make the Grand National a very hazardous race.
One For Arthur won last year’s edition, under the direction of the jockey Derek Fox. Lucinda Russell was the trainer. Who will be this year’s winner? According to the organizing committee, more than 150,000 will go over the three days to find out.
Grand National broadcast rights
If you are in England and you want to enjoy the Grand National over the weekend, you are probably wondering where to watch it on television or via online streaming. ITV, for a second consecutive year, will hold broadcasting rights of England’s most famous horse race.
English channels broadcast the race and the most followed events since 1960. The BBC was in charge of transmitting the competition from then to 2012 when it ceded the rights to Channel 4 until 2016. An estimated 600 million people from 140 nations are going to watch the Grand National in 2018.
The primary presenter will be the widely known Ed Chamberlain, which is a familiar voice for football fans all over England. As for the favorite horses, Blaklion, Total Recall, Definitely Red, Minella Rocco and Native River are the ones dominating the odds.
VPN: your passport to watch Grand National 2018 free live online
If you find yourself broke and outside of British territory, having access to a streaming feed of the 2018 Grand National will be troublesome, one would think. Except that’s not true at all! Say goodbye to old limitations and watch the race with the aid of a VPN service provider.
Virtual Private Networks are online resources and services that encrypt end to end communications, which means that everything you open, visit or share under a VPN connection will remain off-limits to external and malicious agents because it will be sent through a virtual tunnel traveling between the user and the VPN server of your chosen provider.
VPNs provide people with privacy because by choosing to hide they’re original, actual IP addresses; they remain off-limits to hackers, crypto miners, cybercriminals, virus developers and programmers, their Internet Service Providers, and virtually anyone looking to take advantage of their available data and traffic. They also offer security, because if these threats can’t see you, they will have a harder time harming you in any way.
However, the most exciting feature of these services is their ability to make systems and services on the Internet believe that a person is physically in a country. For example, if you live in Brazil, but want to watch Grand National 2018 free live online, you would need to connect to a UK server. If you try to enter the ITV streaming site from your current location, you will most likely receive a message notifying you that, because of licensing issues, the content is unavailable.
However, using a VPN to mask your Brazilian IP address and borrowing a British one will be enough to unblock and watch Grand National 2018 free live online streaming.
How to watch Grand National 2018 free live online
- Select a VPN service provider of your liking. It is crucial that it comes with servers in the United Kingdom, high-grade encryption and security measures.
- Visit your chosen provider’s website.
- Sign up for the VPN service, providing your name, email, and a payment method, in addition to other information that the page may ask you.
- Access the Apps section of the website of your chosen VPN and download the client compatible with your device.
- Install the VPN app on your device and run it.
- Log in to the VPN app with the credentials and details you previously provided in the registration phase.
- Establish a connection to a United Kingdom server.
- After connecting, open the ITV streaming site.
- Open the streaming and enjoy watching the 2018 Grand National for free online from anywhere on the planet!
Best VPN to watch the 2018 Grand National online for free
 |
 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Multi-platform Compatible | ||
| 256-AES Encryption | ||
| PRICE | $5 for 1 month with code "best10VPN" | $6.95 a month |
| Website Rating | 9.9 | 8.8 |
| 24/7 Live Chat | ||
| Residential / Dedicated IP for permanent streaming access | ||
| Has Mobile App + PC / Mac Support | ||
| Stealth VPN / Advanced Obfuscation techniques | ||
| Visit VPN Provider | Visit TorGuard | Visit PIA |
TorGuard: One of the very best alternatives in the market, TorGuard comes with servers in the UK and top-end speeds and privacy settings to offer you the best streaming experience. It costs just $9.99 per month, and it comes with all the major protocols, full anonymity, compatibility with all operating systems, DNS leak protection, and the ability to connect five simultaneous devices.
IPVanish: To stream the 2018 Grand National, IPVanish represents one of the top options because it is maybe the fastest VPN service in its field. It has the required UK servers, it maintains stable rates and performance, and it has 750 servers, 40,000 IP addresses and 60 nations available for connection. On top of that, its variety of features, such as a kill switch and DNS leak protection, make IPVanish the preferred option for numerous streamers around the globe.
Private Internet Access: PIA, as it is often shortened, doesn’t have the enormous network of IPVanish or the military-like security of TorGuard, but is a reliable combination of the two at a fraction of the price: the top two choices hover around $10 per month while PIA costs $6.95. It allows you to enjoy content from 29 nations, it has more than 3,000 servers, and it is very straightforward to setup and use.
GhostVPN: With stealth VPN, 1,600 servers in 51 countries, a 15-day money-back guarantee and reliable security and AES 256-bit encryption, GhostVPN is quickly rising the leaderboard of people’s preferred VPN options. It is more than able to let you watch the 2018 Grand National online for free.
In conclusion, we are already in the 2018 Grand National week, and the events will begin airing on Thursday, April 12, on ITV. British people will have no issues accessing the streaming site, but what about those living abroad?
A Virtual Private Network is the most useful tool to let these people enjoy the race, the passion, and the skill of 40 horses and jockeys. They need to hire a VPN client or app, connecting to a UK server and open ITV’s site the day of the race.
