The Big Dog© Photo Healy Racing
If a trainer’s confidence was a guide to winning the Randox Grand National, The Big Dog would be already be home and hosed.
It is never easy to be overly-optimistic in any horse race, especially so in the four-and-a-quarter-mile Aintree showpiece. More so if that horse fell on his last start.
Though The Big Dog tipped up — for the first time in his chasing career — in the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown in February, Peter Fahey is adamant the 10-year-old, who won the Munster National and the Troytown Chase earlier this term, has all the credentials to land the £1million race.
“He travelled over great and is in great form. We are really looking forward to it,” said the Kildare handler.
“If you drew a line under his last run, his form is rock solid.
“The ground is beautiful, everything seems good and well for him. He is in great form and working well at home. You get a bit of luck in running, and hopefully he runs a big race for everyone.
“It is a race that every trainer in the world wants to win and to have a horse going to it with a great chance is brilliant.
“Please God he’ll win and it would be brilliant for everyone involved.
“I think he can win — I do. I can’t see any reason why not. I think he has a great profile. You take away his fall and he has a proper profile for it.” Any Second Now will carry top weight of 11st 12lb, having finished an unlucky third in the race in 2021 and second to Noble Yeats last year.
In contrast to Fahey, trainer Ted Walsh feels the 11-year-old’s best chance may have passed, however.
He said: “He’s as good as he can be and I think he’s as good as he was last year. That probably won’t be good enough but anymore than that I can’t do.
“Whatever he has he has, but he is rated 8lb higher than last year and he couldn’t win it last year, so it is very hard to see him winning now. But he’s in good nick, he goes there with a good chance and I’m glad to have him.
“There’s been no hiccups all season and everything is good, no problems.
“It is great to be a part of it. I never thought I would ever have a horse that was saddlecloth number one going to the start of the Grand National anyway.
“Everyone in National Hunt racing dreams about a Gold Cup and a Grand National or Irish National and they are the biggest ones you can get.
“The dream has already been fulfilled (Walsh won the race with Papillon in 2000), but I don’t know if it will be fulfilled again.” Le Milos bids for a second big handicap chase success of the season, having plundered the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury in November.
Though he did not run again until being narrowly beaten at Kelso in early March, trainer Dan Skelton is confident he has him fitter than when last seen.
“Le Milos is in really good form. I took him for an away day recently, and he was very good,” said Skelton.
“He’s versatile in regards to the ground and I think he’ll stay the trip, so he’s got a good profile for the race.
“He’s a Coral Gold Cup winner and I can assure you that I was probably as fit as he was at Kelso!
“I was a bit embarrassed about it to be honest, as I knew he’d need the run, but then when you get caught that late, you do kick yourself a little bit.
“He was obviously a gallop short of winning that day but I know how much he’d done and how much he’s done since, so I know that will be well left behind.” Longhouse Poet was sixth last year, weakening in the finish after racing to the fore. He advertised his well-being when beating Roi Mage at Down Royal and trainer Martin Brassil, who won the race in 2006 with Numbersixvalverde, feels he will be right in the thick of things again.
“Everything is as it should be, hopefully,” he said. “He was a bit keen last year and we have had that to look back on, so we can see what we can do to alleviate it.
“The fact that he has had a run round there might mean he is not as exuberant as he was the first time, but at least he has the experience of it anyway.
“It’s a great ride for JJ (Slevin) and there has been plenty of rain, which won’t hurt — the slower the ground, the better.”
Only three grey horses have landed the Aintree prize since the race’s inception in 1839 — The Lamb (1871), Nicolaus Silver (1961) and Neptune Collonges (2012). Vanillier has just 10st 6lb on his back as he bids to join that elite trio and trainer Gavin Cromwell thinks there is plenty in his favour.
“He has a lovely weight,” said the Navan handler. “The ground looks like it is going to be ideal and he’s settled in well since he’s come over.
“We’re looking forward to it. His run last time behind Kemboy in the Bobbyjo was a great run, especially since were were ‘wrong’ at the weights, and that was a good prep.
“He has come out of that well and hopefully come forward a bit since then.
“Like every National, you need everything to go your way and you need luck on your side, but if he gets that, hopefully he’ll be in the mix.
“I think he’ll take to the fences. We schooled him over similar (National) fences at the Curragh and he seemed to like them, so fingers crossed he’ll go well.”
The Sam Thomas-trained Our Power also has a nice racing weight, having sneaked in at the foot of the handicap.
Winner of four of his eight starts over fences, the eight-year-old is on a hat-trick, having won competitive three-mile handicaps on his previous two starts at Ascot and Kempton.
“We took him to Lambourn as they’ve got two ready-made fences and it was a nice away day for them,” said Thomas. “He jumped brilliantly, had a good day out and a good experience all round.
“It’s very much an unknown, they go a terrible speed down to the first few and you’re in the lap of the gods really. You need to have a lot of luck, meet the first on a nice stride and get your feet on the ground.
“Sam (Twiston-Davies, jockey) is super excited, he wears his heart on his sleeve and he’s been pretty vocal about it for quite some time.
“He’s got a progressive profile I’d say. We’re going into the race with a nice, fresh horse but there are so many unknowns.”
Six-times champion trainer Nicky Henderson hopes to fill the glaring omission on his glittering CV with Mister Coffey
The eight-year-old, who was 16th when favourite for the Topham over the same Grand National fences last April, has finished runner-up on five of his eight chase starts and was placed in the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham last time.
“Mister Coffey’s stats are great — he’s a maiden over fences but he placed in a National Hunt Chase. But you need to worry about my stats!” Henderson said.
“It would be nice (to win it) and we will give it a go.
“He ran a great race at Cheltenham, that was a perfect Aintree trial. He took to the fences in the Topham, it just wasn’t far enough, this time it’s another whole circuit.”
