A woman will commentate on Saturday’s Grand National for the first time in more than 70 years.
Gina Bryce will take the third leg of the commentary from Aintree racecourse in Merseyside for BBC Radio 5 Live’s coverage of the steeplechase.
The 41-year-old broadcaster said: “Never in a million years did I think I’d get the opportunity to do something like this.
“It’s a first for me and very exciting, although slightly terrifying as you can imagine.”
She will hand over to lead commentator John Hunt, who returned to work at the Cheltenham Festival last month just days after he saw Kyle Clifford jailed for life for the murder of his wife Carol Hunt and daughters Louise and Hannah.
Bryce said she would be “surrounded by great colleagues” for the race.
She said: “I couldn’t be in better hands, as I’ll take over from Darren Owen and Gary O’Brien before passing it on to John Hunt.”
She is only the second woman ever to commentate on the race, after Mirabel Topham, whose family owned the racecourse, employed her own commentators and joined them on the microphone following a dispute with the BBC over copyright in 1952.
