Grand National

     Swing Bill setting off on the Lorry

The big day is finally here, it's National day and there is a buzz about the yard.  Our runners set off at 5.30am this morning for Aintree so they will be up there nice and early.  War Singer runs in the flat charity race at 1.10pm and Tony Dobbin rides.  There are a lot of top former jockeys in the race, both flat and jump boys and it should be an exciting watch.  It will be shown live of Channel 4 so make sure you tune into see Marcus Armytage, Kevin Darley, Richard and Michael Hills, Carl Llewellyn and Adrian Maguire to name a few so it will not be competitive at all!!  Grands Crus returns to action over hurdles and after a largely disappointing season so far with the exception of his good third in the King George we are just hoping he shoes his old spark.  Problema Tic and Garynella both run in the 3.25pm handicap chase and have to improve on disappointing efforts last time and then we have Swing Bill in the National.  Our gallant twelve year old ran well in the race last year and finished 10th after being quite badly hampered at the Chair.  He was a winner earlier in the season and was also a close fourth in the Becher Chase over the Grand National fences in November.  He seems to love the Aintree track, he is in flying form at home and Conor O'Farrell is sure to get a fantastic ride.  

Shotavodka completes our Aintree line up in the conditional jockeys race which follows the feature event.  He has one his last three starts and alsthough this is much tougher he seems to be on the upgrade and we are hopeful of a good run with Kieron Edgar in the saddle.  While mentioning about our conditional jockeys I am pleased to report that Tom Bellamy had an operation on his broken right femur yesterday which went well and he is now recovering in hospital and hopefully it will not be too long before he is allowed home.  We have two runners at Chepstow this afternoon as well.  Oddjob is looking to build on his 2nd last time out at Leicester and Henok is looking for his first ever win but he ran well enough behined some useful horses at Exeter on his chase debut.  Andrew Glassonbury rides both of David's Chepstow runners.

                               Dynaste 

Dynaste was in fantastic form at Aintree yesterday.  He bounced back from Cheltenham with a superb jumping display and turn of foot which saw him beat off his rivals quite easily. This was his fourth win of the season and he was very impressive under a patient ride from Tom Scu.  Centasia also ran a cracking race to finish fourth in the mares Bumper while Gevrey Chambertin and Broadway Buffalo ran okay but did not reach the frame.  I am pleased to report that all the horses are back and are all okay this morning which is the main thing.  Good luck with your National bets evryone and enjoy a great days action.