Aintree 2024

After missing another couple of meetings due to the inclement weather, our next outing was at Aintree for the three day Grand National meeting.

We were pleased that the weather forecast looked settled and were looking forward to some good competitive racing. Looby was once again on the team to help us run our two pitches and we had an early set off on Thursday to travel down.

After our original accommodation in Newton-le-Willows had been cancelled by the host, we ended up swapping again, changing from a hotel in Southport to an apartment in Haydock – an area we are more familiar with.

With the extortionate expenses nowadays at these Festivals, you really cannot afford even one bad day. It’s traditionally always been difficult on the Thursday and this year was no exception.

Arguably the best quality racing of the three days but lots of shorties and unfortunately they all obliged.

We were punch drunk after Il Etait Temps at 3/1, Sir Gino at 11/10, Gerri Colombe at 9/4, Impaire Et Passe at evens, It’s On the Line the 3-1 Foxhunter jolly and Sans Bruit the 5/1 second favourite in the Red Rum were all losing races.

Diva Luna at 13/2 in the bumper was the third in but did get us a little bit back because we stood the first two in the market.

A disastrous start and it wasn’t only us that were left speechless so were most of our on-course colleagues. To add insult to injury it poured down at the end, even though it wasn’t supposed to (again!) and everything was saturated and needed dragging into the apartment to be dried out. Very depressing indeed.

On Friday, we elected to stand in more or less the same place and it was a case of deja vu in the first four races. In they went one after another – Inothewayurthinking the 6/4 jolly, Kateira the 5/1 favourite, Mystical Power the 11/10 jolly and then our lay of the day Jonbon the 11/10 favourite. By now we were desperate.

Arizona Cardinal at 20/1 at last got us a plus in the book when winning the Topham. Dancing City at 4/1 won us a round of drinks but El Jefe at 40/1 came from the clouds to win the last and give us some much needed respite.

We were still well behind getting the expenses and would need an exceptional day on Saturday to avoid doing any damage but felt that maybe, just maybe we had turned a corner.

On Friday night, we had a lovely Italian meal in Ashton and attempted to drown our sorrows (although Looby would only let me have one bottle of desperados). There was no late night though as it was no good trying to climb the mountain we faced with a hangover.

We started Saturday not much better off than we had started on Thursday. Gwennie May Boy the 9/2 second in was followed by Brighterdaysahead the 6/5 jolly (not very aptly named on this occasion it seemed) and we were right back to square one. Damage limitation was now our only real option.

Cruz Control at 9/1 followed by Strong Leader at 10/1 gave us much needed back to back results going into the feature race of the meeting.

The Grand National nowadays is a hard race for us to win on. The general standard of the horses that take part is much higher and so we tend to find that one of the front of the market goes on to win.

I am Maximus the 7-1 market leader continued the Mullins show and trotted up despite there being any number of horses still in contention at the elbow. Fortunately, the places were kind and limited the loss.

In the penultimate, our hearts were broken when Found a Fifty the 11/8 favourite just got up in the shadows of the post to deny Master Chewy 10/1. A bitter pill to swallow as we felt STD would’ve won on it had he been riding.

One race left, a bumper and we finished with a winner when Horaces Pearl at 14/1 thankfully beat its stablemate Tripoli Flyer.

The net result of the three days was that fine margins had made a massive difference. If Langer Dan, Conflated or Master Chewy had won it would’ve been a completely different blog story.

But it wasn’t meant to be and our tricky run rolls on. We are glad for a few days off to recover before we are back at it at the weekend. Blog to follow. Watch this space.