Cloth Cap will be going in as favourite
Credit: PA
The 2021 Grand National gets underway this afternoon. Here, 1990 winner Marcus Armytage gives his verdict, while you can find the view of our tipster Marlborough and the thoughts of the great and the good from sport below.
Good luck!
It may not be quite the message the Government has wanted to get across to the public in the last 12 months but, as a degree of normality begins to return, it is time we should all start Takingrisks.
A year after the Randox Health Grand National was cancelled by Covid, the 173
rd running will finally take place albeit in front of its smallest ever crowd which might just about amount to 1,000 people if you add up the owners, trainers, officials, racecourse staff and police.
Scudamore hopes to cap it all in the National france24.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from france24.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Classiest Grand National field of all time ready for a fast and furious show
By Andy Stephens@StevoGG
Fri 9 Apr 2021
Forty horses. Forty jockeys. Thirty fences dressed in spruce. The Randox Grand National is always one of the great spectacles of the sporting year and the world’s most famous race will be watched by an estimated a global audience of 600 million on Saturday.
Casual viewers turning in for their once-a-year fix might not notice, but modifications mean the showpiece is not the contest it once was.
The fences are less fearsome than in days of old and the race distance has been shortened, with the one-time long run to the first fence no more. Only three horeses fell in the latest renewal, which must constitute a record and suggests the tinkering has brought benefits.
How to back the right horse: top tips for the Grand National spectator.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from spectator.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
UPDATED 9:06PM, APR 9 2021
Randox Grand National Handicap Chase (Grade 3) | 4m2½f | 7yo+ | ITV/RTV
Cloth Cap is a stone well in and his master trainer thinks he will win – what s not to like about the Grand National favourite?
Putting aside his short odds – he might go off a skinnier price than Tiger Roll (4-1) two years ago and could even eclipse Poethlyn (11-4) as the National s shortest-priced winner – Cloth Cap appears to have all the credentials for the race.
Jonjo O Neill ended a long wait, first as a jockey and then a trainer, for National success when saddling Don t Push It to glory for Sir Anthony McCoy in 2010.