Hilarious pictures show West Lothian man stage 'one man Grand National' wearing fancy dress horse costume

Families got in the spirit by putting homemade jumps outside their homes

A West Lothian resident staged a hilarious one man Grand National - galloping around his neighbourhood in a fancy dress horse costume.Andy Stewart, 49, from Bo'Ness, hatched the plan to cheer up locked down locals after the real race was cancelled.The financial bookkeeper posted his racecourse on a neighbourhood Facebook group, and invited families along the route from his house in Birdland Avenue to erect obstacles for him to negotiate on the hoof.Residents were also invited to send him a horse name and house number, with the winner drawn from a hat after the one horse race.Families got in the spirit by putting homemade jumps outside their homes and cheering from their doorsteps as he galloped past.Andy, who got under starter's orders at 4pm, posted: "Hi everyone, the Bo'ness Grand National is on today! Would you like a laugh and a horse in the race? OK, there's only one horse and it's me in my fancy dress outfit!"He added: "Feel free to put small obstacles on the route that I will be able to jump over (and not have to touch). At the end of the race we will draw the winner's name out of the hat and the winner will get a bottle of wine when the current situation is all over."Just a bit of fun to try and cheer everyone up and remember social distancing please."Andy, who was accompanied around by his eight year old son Lewis, said today/yesterday [SUN]: "The Grand National is an institution loved by everyone. When I heard that it was cancelled I decided to do my own in the street."Obviously with social distancing, there could be only one horse but the idea was to give everyone a laugh when they would normally be watching the race on TV."We do lots of things as a street and everybody pitches in, but the Facebook group has been a source of community spirit since the lockdown."That was my one piece of exercise for the day and we made sure everyone kept a safe distance, but people still came out and clapped on their doorsteps. Some people put up jumps and there were a couple of paddling pools for water jumps."It was good fun and I think it cheered people up."Andy's neighbours appreciated his efforts, with one posting: "Well done. I think we all needed that."Another wrote: "Thank you Andy and family - it really brought a smile to our faces. Loved it."A third commented: "That was fantastic. Well done Andy for making our wee community laugh."