Saturday, April 9, 2011
Amateur rider seeks Grand National racing history
Amateur rider seeks Grand National racing history
Sat Apr 9
LIVERPOOL, United Kingdom (AFP) – Amateur rider Sam Waley-Cohen, winner of the Gold Cup on Long Run, is out to spike the guns of his professional weighing room colleagues again and create history in Saturday's Grand National.
Waley-Cohen, who in his day job runs a dental practice, teams up over the famous Aintree fences for what would be an unprecedented double on Oscar Time, runner-up in last year's Irish National.
The 28-year-old, who also landed January's King George VI Chase on Long Run, is seeking to become the first amateur to win the Gold Cup and Grand National in the same season.
Waley-Cohen, who will as a non-professional forfeit any prize money he picks up in the near £1 million showpiece, said: "Although this season has been so good, it is still a boyhood dream come true to line up in the National on one of the leading contenders."
Oscar Time is part of a dozen-strong Irish raiding party headed by ante-post favourite The Midnight Club, whose rider, Ruby Walsh, will become the first jockey since the Second World War to win three Nationals should he succeed.
And his 2011 conveyance has been prepared with only Saturday in mind, having run only twice in the past year, runner-up in the Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park in January before displaying his wellbeing when going one better at Fairyhouse the following month.
Walsh's previous winners came on his father Ted's Papillon in 2000, and Hedgehunter, trained by The Midnight Club's handler Willie Mullins, in 2005.
Walsh's sister Katie was robbed of her first National appearance after her intended runner Our Monty was ruled out with a leg infection.
Another Irish trainer, flat supremo Dermot Weld, returns to the National fray for the first time in 16 years with 33-1 shot Majestic Concorde, who finished fourth on the level at Chester on his last visit to Britain.
Weld, who has two Melbourne Cups to his name, went close in the National with Greasepaint, twice runner up in 1983-84 and third in 1985.
Topweight over the gruelling four and a half mile marathon is shouldered by Don't Push It, successful last year for Tony McCoy, the multiple champion jockey for whom despite having ridden almost 3,000 winners this was a first victory in the world's most famous steeplechase at his 15th attempt.
It was also a first win for trainer Jonjo O'Neill, who had begun to think he was going to miss out on National glory.
"Sometimes you have to accept a thing is not going to happen," O'Neill told The Times on Thursday.
"You can't win everything, do everything. You can't be God."
O'Neill revealed how before last year's race he had rung owner JP McManus's racing manager, Frank Berry, to tell him it was a waste of time sending Don't Push It to Aintree, such was his disappointment at his horse's preparations.
"Luckily he (Berry) said we'd paid the money so we might as well go!"
Of the chances of a repeat O'Neill said: "I'm happier with him this year. The preparation has been brilliant, which probably means he'll fall at the first...."
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson would relish a win in Liverpool and the Scot's hopes are carried by What A Friend, Paul Nicholls' charge last seen out when fourth in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
Jockey Daryl Jacob is laidback over the identity of his big race mount's owner, saying: "I don't really think about who owns the horses before I ride them.
"It doesn't matter if it's Sir Alex Ferguson, the Queen or someone from Dorset - I want to do the best I can on them all."
A maximum field of 40 go to post for the 2011 edition.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Grand National Now a Matter of Class
SPORTSAPRIL 8, 2011
Grand National Now a Matter of Class
By JONATHAN CLEGG
WSJ
AINTREE, England—The Grand National, the world's most famous steeplechase, is an event that thrives on unpredictability.
Only 11 favorites have won round here in more than a century, and none has done so in six years. Five have won at 100-to-1, most recently Mon Mome in 2009. The only sure bet in this long-odds race is that fewer than half the runners will reach the finish: In 1928, only two of the 42 horses completed the race; only four of 40 finished as recently as 2001.
Winning over Aintree's four-and-a-half miles and 40 obstacles requires experience, stamina and guts. But mostly, it's about luck.
Agence France-Presse
A. P. McCoy, right, celebrates as he rides Don't Push It to victory in last year's Grand National steeplechase at Aintree.
Or it used to be. But as the 40 thoroughbreds prepare for the 164th running of this history-steeped epic on Saturday, behind the scenes something rather unexpected is going on: This sport's most unpredictable race is no longer the wide-open sweepstake it's supposed to be.
"The Grand National always throws up interesting stories," says Julian Thick, managing director of Aintree Racecourse. "But they're not always fairy tales anymore."
The Grand National is on a tear these days. Television ratings topped 7.6 million in the U.K. last year, making the National a bigger draw than the FA Cup final and Wimbledon. Prize money for this year's race has risen to £950,000 ($1.5 million) and more than 73,000 fans will pack the racetrack for Saturday's big race, the first sellout crowd in decades.
But the biggest upturn at this race may be the one taking place on the track. For reasons that range from the modernization of this famous old course to a new plan for handicapping the field, the most remarkable jump around Aintree in recent years has been in the quality of horses taking part.
Just a decade ago, the National was still largely made up of horses that would have been better employed in front of a cart. But in the past few years, the calibre of mount has improved to such an extent that Bobbyjo, which streaked to victory by 10 lengths in 1999, wouldn't have made the final field in any of the past 10 runnings.
"It's a very different race to what it was a decade ago," said Russ Wiseman, of London-based online gambling company Sportingbet PLC.
The National's transformation from a race in which few owners were willing to enter a top-class horse into an event that attracts many of chasing's biggest names surely has something to do with the heaps of cash on offer: Prize money at this race has risen by £500,000 in the past decade.
But it's also the result of efforts by Aintree officials and race sponsors to modernize a course that included a stone wall and a stretch of ploughed field for the first Grand National in 1839.
Since the 1989 running, in which two horses died, administrators have softened the course, modfiying some of the most hazardous obstacles to protect the animals. The upshot is a race that, while still a fearsome challenge, is no longer such a perilous one—especially since the notorious Becher's Brook was covered up in 2005. Last year, more than a third of the field made it round.
At the same time, a new formula for handicapping the race has bridged the gap between the highest-rated horses and the lowest. In recognition of the unique demands of this race—the longest, toughest steeplechase in the world—the National now allocates weights for each horse that differ from the official handicaps for regular chases.
Since Phil Smith, the British Horseracing Authority's senior jumps handicapper, began tweaking the weights in 2001, the class of entries has increased dramatically. In 1999, the lowest-rated horse in the race had an official rating of 110; in Saturday's race the lowest-rated horse, Golden Kite, has a rating of 135. In other words, the quality of the field has increased by 25lbs in 11 years.
"They have tried to encourage the high-class horses to run by compressing the handicap a little," said David Pipe, the trainer of the 2008 winner Comply or Die.
All of which means that the National has swiftly come to resemble any other handicap race—one in which the best horses with the highest ratings usually win. Only four of the past 20 winners here have returned odds of greater than 20-1
In previous years, that wasn't the case—a third of the runners went to the starting post with no chance at all because a weight of 11st or more was insurmountable.
When Hedgehunter carried 11st 1lb in 2005, it was the first National winner to carry over 11st in 22 years. Since then, three of the past five winners have carried 11st or more.
Which explains why Ruby Walsh is optimistic ahead of his ride on The Midnight Club, the favorite for Saturday's race.
"It's great to have a ride in the Grand National and a fancied one at that," he says. "I think he's got a good shout—and in the Grand National, that's really all you can hope for."
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