Rowleyfile Preview: Grand National Trial

The recent unscheduled break in racing coincided neatly with the unveiling of the weights for the Grand National at a lunch in Liverpool.

It appeared a showy affair from afar – my invitation got lost in the post again this year – but main man Martin Greenwood (formerly Timeform’s jumps handicapper) went in for none of his predecessor’s theatrics, delivering his verdict professionally and succinctly.

There were few concessions from Greenwood to the supposed “Aintree Factor”, or to hyperbole. The vast majority of the horses got the marks you might expect in any case. Having known the Hebden Bridge-born man for a long time, I half expected him to say “it’s only a chuffing staying handicap chase after all”.

The big race itself will be the ultimate test of the man’s work, of course, but before then there are plenty of smaller tests along the way, starting with the William Hill-sponsored Grand National Trial at Haydock on Saturday.

We have a lot of history to go on for an event that was established in 1947, though oddly no-one thought it worth running the race from 1985 to 1990. Twin Oaks, Cool Ground, Party Politics and Master Oats – all of them giants of the jumping game – won the first four races after reintroduction, and this year’s renewal features the last three winners in Yala Enki, Vieux Lion Rouge and Bishops Road.

That history means we can consider trends from the last 10 years, which are as follows.

Three veterans have won in the last decade, but from quite a sizeable representation, and such horses have underperformed slightly judged by the more reliable measure of % of rivals beaten. Eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds have been best.

Higher-weighted horses have fared best, if not by a wide margin, as have last-time winners (whose impressive win and place impact values are not entirely backed up by %RB).

But perhaps the most eye-catching figure is that poor performance by horses that have two or fewer runs in the season in question. Some wins have been forthcoming, but that %RB is a miserable 38.9%. Six of the 16 declared runners in Saturday’s field have been seen sparingly of late.

Put all those trends together and the most interesting contender is arguably Royal Vacation, a highly-weighted nine-year-old, with three runs under his belt this season, including a win last time.

That win came at Taunton in the quite valuable Weatherbys Portman Cup, in which Royal Vacation accounted for a past Grand National runner-up in The Last Samuri and a dual Scottish Grand National winner in Vicente. The time was decent, and there is at least an argument to be made for Royal Vacation still being well-treated off a mark of 152.

Royal Vacation was a smart novice a couple of seasons back, when winning the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase as a result of Might Bite’s crashing out at the last. He lost his way a bit thereafter but found it with a vengeance again last time. A marathon trip and headgear may be important to him, and he has both again here.

What he also seems likely to have is a strong pace, with six of the runners boasting Timeform Early Position Figures of 2.2 or less, indicating front-runners and pace-pressers.

One of those six is The Two Amigos, a gelding that deserves to enter calculations despite ticking only a couple of those trends boxes.

He is “too young” and “too far down the weights”, but he is in a rich vein of form, with three wins out of four this season, and is certainly not out of it despite being 8 lb higher than when beating Calin du Brizais in a useful time at Plumpton most recently.

There looks like being no trip too far for The Two Amigos, who nonetheless copes perfectly well with ground with a touch of “good” in it, as Saturday’s promises to be.

There are other good contenders in the line-up – not least Ramses de Teillee and Yala Enki, second and third in the Welsh Grand National last time – but not necessarily at double-figure odds at the time of writing.

Sixteen declared runners makes this a good race mathematically for an each-way bet if they all stand their ground, but less so if they don’t. Given current circumstances and a 48-hour declaration, I would go odds on that there is at least one defection, so splitting stakes in the win-only market is favoured.

Recommendations: 0.5 pt win ROYAL VACATION (11/1) and 0.5 pt win THE TWO AMIGOS (12/1)