Importance Score: 25 / 100 🔵
Key events
Maghull Novice Chase (5pm) betting
And with that Tony Paley is back to take over. Bye!
An email from Ladbrokes lands, and here are their early favourites for next year’s Grand National. It’s never too soon.
I Am Maximus 16/1
Nick Rockett 16/1
Iroko 20/1
Jagwar 20/1
Myretown 20/1
Haiti Couleurs 25/1
Greg Wood
Maghull Novice Chase (5pm) preview
The last of the meeting’s Grade One events features the second, fourth and fifth horses home in a dramatic running of the Arkle Trophy at Cheltenham last month, when L’Eau Du Sud, through no real fault of his own, seemed to find himself in front for a little too long after Majborough, the hot favourite, made a hash of the last two fences. Dan Skelton’s runner certainly looked the likeliest winner two out and could well prove the point today, although Kalif Du Berlais is a fresher horse having been steered around Cheltenham and also back at his optimum trip after finding little at the business end in a Grade One over two-and-a-half last time.
SELECTION: L’EAU DU SUD
All the jockeys are fine, but a couple of the horses are struggling. Broadway Boy, who led the race for so long, and Celebre D’Allen are, we’re told, being “assessed by expert veterinary teams”.
Watching the replays, and as late as fence 24 Nick Rockett is not in the top 10. He was ninth over 27 and maybe seventh going round the home turn, with two jumps to go, but out of the turn a gap opens up and Patrick Mullins goes for it. Nick Rockett is first over the 29th and penultimate fence and leads from there, though I Am Maximus pushes him hard until the last 80 yards.
Our snap report on Nick Rockett’s Grand National victory is here:
The trophy presentation is now taking place. The trainer’s and jockey’s trophies are delightfully minimal. They are roughly the shape, but not quite the size, of a half-decent Easter egg.
The story behind Nick Rockett has made this a particularly emotional win: he was originally owned by Stewart Andrew’s wife, Sadie, who had wanted the horse to be trained by Willie Mullins. This was her dream, but Sadie died of cancer in December 2022, a few days after Nick Rockett ran his first race over jumps. “Out of such sadness, such joy has been born and Nick Rockett has done it all for me, “ Stewart said earlier this year.
The first five in full:
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Nick Rockett
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I Am Maximus
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Grangeclare West
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Iroko
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Meetingofthewaters
Stewart Andrew, the winner’s owner, carries Patrick Mullins on his back into the winners enclosure.
Willie Mullins speaks to ITV. That was some result, the interview enthuses. “Some result, yeah,” he says. He is quite emotional, and not really in any state to be interviewed on national TV.
Patrick Mullins has a chat:
He was just perfect. I actually had too good a start and I was trying to take him back all the way. He just jumped fantastic. It’s a dream since I was a kid. When I was five or six years old I was reading books about the Grand National so to put my name there is incredibly special. He’s just a brilliant horse. He’s not very big, one of the smallest in the field, but he’s brave as a lion.
Willie Mullins has trained the Grand National winner, and Nick Rockett did it with his son Patrick on board! Mullins has all the top three, and four of the top five!
Nick Rockett wins the Grand National!
It’s a victory for the Mullins family, with I Am Maximus finishing a couple of lengths back in second, ahead of Grangeclare West!
Nick Rockett ahead of I Am Maximus in the final 150 yards!
Four in the lead now going into the last. I Am Maximus is one of them!
Celebre D’Allen in the lead now with two to go!
Broadway Boy crashes out having led the entire race! Beauport comes through to take the lead.
Kandoo Kid goes down, and he brings Appreciate It down too! Neither were among the leaders. Bravemangame is up to third.
Broadway Boy still leading over Open Ditch, but Three Card Brag is half a length behind. Beauport and Broadway Boy follow them.
Coko Beach pulls up before the Chair. There are maybe 30 horses in the main group going into the second circuit.
Broadway Boy still in front, followed by Beauport and Three Card Brag, going over No13.
Perceval Legallois is the second horse to go, over Valentine’s Brook.
Broadway Boy still in the lead as they go over Becher’s for the first time.
Duffle Coat has unseated his rider and is the first horse out of the race.
Over the first of 30 fences. Broadway Boy is leading the field and this extremely early stage.
And they’re off!
Iroko has overtaken I Am Maximus in the betting and looks set to start the race as favourite. The clock strikes four, and this race is about to happen.
About to start. Bravemansgame, a 50-1 chance trained by Paul Nicholls, hasn’t made it out yet and doesn’t look at all keen.
The jockeys are getting aboard their rides and running them in front of the Queen Mother Stand. Five minutes away now.
Michael Keady, who has never trained a horse to victory over jumps, has Horantzau d’Airy wearing No29, the most outside of all the outsiders at 150-1:
We’re dreaming. Fingers crossed he can just jump round safely and anything more than that’s a bonus.
The jockeys make their way out, with the race just 10 minutes away now.
Shark Hanlon, the trainer of the £800, Guinness-drinking horse-of-the-people Hewick and apparently in line to win a seven-figure sum if his horse comes in, has one of the finest nicknames in showbusiness. Here’s the origin story:
The nickname came from a hurling game when I was 18 in Kilkenny. I was playing full forward – I wasn’t much good but I was big and awkward and kept a full-back busy. A couple of balls came in and I was lucky enough to catch them and throw them to the corner forwards to score goals and Pa Dillon shouted on the sidelines: “Would someone cut the head off that shark and we can all go home now?” I remember we won that final and came back to Paulstown, and they said the man of the match was the shark. From that day on, I’ve been known as the shark.
Hello world! Well, this is exciting is it not. ITV are currently showing us the horses in the parade ring. To my absolutely untrained eye they all look like wonderful beasts, and we’re given reasons to be enthusiastic about all of them (well, almost all, some owners and trainers are clearly just happy to be here). Broadway Boy is apparently “popping”.
And as they cross the Melling Road it’s over to Simon Burnton …