Two-time Grand National winning trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies saw 2016 RSA Chase victor Blaklion sent off favourite for last year’s Aintree marathon, before securing a somewhat-disappointing fourth-placed finish.
This nine-year-old Cheltenham Festival winner is duking it out with Irish raider Total Recall for favouritism in the ante post betting for this season’s renewal of the world’s greatest steeplechase.
Unlike 12 months ago, Blaklion comes into the 2018 Grand National with both experience and a course victory over the unique spruce covered obstacles under his belt.
He turned up at Aintree earlier in the season and justified being sent off a heavily backed 7/4 favourite when landing the 3m 2f Becher Chase in December by nine lengths from The Last Samuri.
The runner-up is also a previous Grand National second, while others in-behind (Highland Lodge and Vieux Lion Rouge) also boasted greater experience of those fences.
While course form isn’t everything – the Becher is a mile short of the National trip – a win and a place around it are certainly pluses for punters thinking of backing Blaklion again.
He was not among the tips at Timeform for either that outing or last year’s Grand National but, whatever experts put forward, there’s substance behind a prominent place in the betting.
If he is sent off favourite again come Saturday, 14 April, then Blaklion will have to buck a significant race trend.
In the two decades since handler Twiston-Davies saddled his first Grand National winner, Earth Summit, just three more outright or joint market leaders have landed the spoils.
Is it just coincidence the only clear favourite to take home this premier Aintree prize in that period was Hedgehunter in 2005 – who, like Blaklion’s big betting rival this year, Total Recall, was trained by Willie Mullins?
While the British handicapper fears letting Irish entrants lightly into the Grand National, the poor record of market principals in this race is a negative for backers of either.
Three favourites going in from 19 is a success rate of just less than 16 per cent. Don’t Push It, ridden by legendary jockey AP McCoy, trained by Jonjo O’Neill and owned by that great Irish gambler JP McManus, was the last betting leader to taste Grand National glory back in 2010.
Blaklion has actually drifted in the market since his Becher win, because he was well-beaten when runner-up for a second consecutive season in the Grand National Trial over 3m 4f at Haydock last time out.
Conditions were very testing at that other Merseyside racecourse in February, as only three of the eight runners finished. Blaklion was a beaten favourite in the Trial 12 months previously too, but it is easy to read too much into this.
The Grand National itself is the race connections have had in mind for him all season, so there was little sense in slogging through bottomless ground at a full gallop on what was essentially a prep run.
Going to the Trial was about preventing Blaklion from getting rusty, as there’s over four months between the Becher and big one at Aintree this season.
Based on impressive handling of the Grand National course, there is plenty of supporting evidence for an each-way punt as Twiston-Davies seeks his Aintree hat-trick.
