I’m sure every ‘horsey’ person has been asked the same question: ‘Who should I put my money on in the Grand National?’ No matter whether you’re a dressage rider or a four-in-hand driver, come mid-April everyone wants to hear your views on the most-watched horse race in Britain.
£300 million is expected to be bet on the race itself (Saturday at 5.15pm, if you’d forgotten); the most bet on any single horse race in the world. But who is it worth putting your money on? It’s a tough call, for so many reasons. For starters, unless there are any last-minute changes, there will be 40 horses at the start line – so a sizeable field. And secondly, in a race like the Grand National, run over four miles and with 30 obstacles to navigate, you need luck on your side. It really is a bit of a lottery: even if your own horse jumps well, there’s every probability that you could be wiped out by one jumping besides or in front of you.
A lot of attention has been on last year’s winner, Tiger Roll. He had a storming win in the Glenfarclas cross country race at the Cheltenham Festival last month, so seems to be well in himself. If he were to win, he’d be the first horse to win back to back Grand Nationals since Red Rum, but being the favourite, the odds aren’t in your favour. Even his trainer Gordon Elliott has said he wouldn’t back ‘Tiger’ at his current odds. He’s well loved by racing fans, but he’s also only a small horse, and will be carrying 11st 5 of weight today; a big load for a tiny tiger.
There are, however, two previous winners running today; One for Arthur, who won in 2017, is also back in the line-up. He was the first Scottish-trained horse to win since 1979 (he’s trained by Lucinda Russell up in Kinross), but was then out for over a year with an injury. His comeback season has been – disappointing, shall we say. But Russell thinks he has got his magic back in the last few weeks: ‘I just feel that we’ve got him back. We always said that before the 2017 that the stars were aligning, and I think in the last two weeks they might have just started again’, she told the ITV racing team on Friday. It’d certainly be nice for his owners ‘The Two Golf Widows’, aka Belinda McClung and Debs Thomson. As Debs said to me just after his injury, ‘It was an amazing experience to have a win horse in the greatest steeplechase in the world… Dreams do come true. We’ve had an incredibly journey with Arthur.’
So Arthur is doing it for Scotland – but so too is Lake View Lad, owned by Trevor Hemmings (he owned three previous National winners: Hedgehunter, Ballabriggs and Many Clouds), and trained near Loch Leven. He’s also a grey, which will make him a favourite with the punters.
If you are looking for ‘Girl Power’ then I’d look to Valseur Lido, ridden by Rachael Blackmore, who’s already had a winner at Aintree this week. Her horse, Valseur Lido, has been round the Aintree fences before, coming eighth in last year’s Grand National, so we know he can stay the course, though he hasn’t shown much form this season. The other female jockey is Lizzie Kelly riding Tea For Two, but again, he doesn’t look to be on top of his game. Who knows, though – any horse can surprise. And speaking of jockeys, Anibale Fly has a last-minute jockey change – expected to now be Mark Walsh – after Barry Geraghty broke his leg in two places in a fall this week.
One thing that does tend to help is if a horse has been round the National fences before. They know what to expect of the course, and you get real Aintree specialists. On that basis it might be worth looking at Vieux Lion Rouge, for whom this will be his seventh run over these fences.
In 2018 Pleasant Company only just missed out on the top prize to Tiger Roll; it really was neck and neck, and he’s also back to give it a second go. If Tiger Roll can win again, and Pleasant Company has learned from last year’s race and he can jump round clearly, then why couldn’t he win it? Mind you, both of them are now carrying heavier weights, which won’t help them.
There are forty horses to pick from; at the end of the day, if you know a horse is a good jumper, you might as well make your final decision on the colour of its silks or where it hails from. In fact, you’re probably off splitting your money and spreading it across two, or even three. I don’t think that counts as cheating, and it will give you a greater chance of seeing something that you’ve got money on cross the finish line. After all, in the National, anything can happen.