National Confirmations

Following yesterday's confirmation stage for the Grand National, unsurprisingly most of the field (65) have stood their ground.  We will have three runners in the big race on Saturday: Or Noir de Somoza, Comply Or Die and Piraya, while we have two further entries, Faasel and Junior.  Junior is actually our shortest priced horse in the race, but he needs nineteen to come out before he will get a run and there is next to no chance of that happening...what a story it would be if he could win at Royal Ascot, the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National?!

I see that the ground at Aintree has eased to good/soft after quite a lot of rain.  Thursday looks as though it is going to be cloudy, although the rest of the week looks relatively good (just in time for ladies day!).  The Grand National is scheduled to get underway at 4.15pm and that seems like quite a late start - I would imagine that it is to fit in with the BBC.  It can take quite a while to catch the loose horses after the race, indeed they could be running the last race in the dark!

Obviously the plight of Junior has bought this to my attention, but there are obviously plenty of people who would like to run in the Grand National that will not get in the race.  Why not hold a race over the fences for those that missed the cut, like they do in some of the flat handicaps (the Ayr Gold and SIlver Cups spring to mind)?  You could have the National for those that didn't get in the big race and the Grand National as the big one itself...

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What a football match we have in prospect this evening between Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur.  It will be nice to see Ronaldo up to his old tricks (and I don't mean winking!), also Real manager Jose Mourinho will be interesting to watch as he runs up and down the sideline.  Spurs are as big as 8/1 to win, so that shows you what a tough task they face - if they can come away from this just a goal down, it would give them a chance in the return leg at White Hart Lane.