If you had one eye on the 3.00 at Warwick on Saturday and if you’re meteorologically-gifted and are sure it will be soft ground at Aintree on 15 April, you probably saw the winner of the 2023 Grand National take the Warwick National, also won by One For Arthur in his 2017 GN winning season.
IWILLDOIT (cut to 20/1 for the big one), returning from more than a year off the track since winning the Welsh GN, outstayed all under 11-10 on extremely testing ground over the 29f and stiff jumps of Warwick.
He has a pedigree absolutely spot on for a modern GN, being materially inbred to Wild Risk (via both dam and sire’s dam) and, with a safe prep over fences somewhere beforehand to qualify and shake the "bounce" risk, the stats will give him a winner’s rating (within reason) regardless of the handicapper’s penalty tomorrow (he ran off 147 on Sat so certain to make the GN cut).
BUT, despite his trainer's claim of versatility, his profile strongly suggests that he, like so many other terrific stayers before him, will likely flounder at Aintree without meaningful cut, i.e. “Soft” as the first word in the going description.
Too early and too short to put money down now, for sure.
More anon, naturally.
PS Cheers Mods, for correcting wrong category
Comments
Life is good
Interesting that Iwilldoit needs to run in another chase by 19th February to qualify. After such a long absence and then a near 4m slog, you'd have to wonder whether getting him back on track in basically one month's time maximum, even for a 2.5 mile canter is going to (a) be what they're prepared to do with his wellbeing in mind and (b) scupper his National prospects by not being able to do a prep run later. Though he is now 10 so maybe it's go for broke time.
Obviously the rules are there for good reason but having won a Welsh National, Classic and WN Trial in 5 starts, he would probably be the most qualified non-qualifier ever if he didn't make it!
https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/news/grand-national-tips-who-has-caught-the-eye-in-the-trials-ahead-of-aintree-on-april-15/206672
Of which Irish-trained contribute 54 (64%) and Elliott alone 21 (25%).
10 owned by Gigginstown, 8 by JP.
All of the front 6 from last year bar Santini return and, with Noble Yeats potentially running as topweight off 167 (or thereabouts) and many of the usual trials seemingly failing to deliver serious contenders, we could see the rarity of one of those placed horses taking full advantage of a much lighter relative and absolute weight.
However, there is at least one GN debutant, in addition to Iwilldoit, flashing away very brightly on my radar screen.
More shortly.
https://www.racingpost.com/racecards/32/aintree/2023-04-15/831493/
PS Weights to be unveiled in a fortnight (21 Feb), this year unusually after the Grand National Trial at Haydock (18 Feb).
PPS 4 week gap between Cheltenham and the GN
A quick heads up:
The heavy Irish and young complexion of the entries (7~9 year olds made up 48% of runners over 2021/22 but comprise 74% of 2023 entries, of which 12 are 7 year olds) and dearth of seasoned stayers (so sad that Win My Wings had to retire - would have been a great sight in a GN) means that it's going to take a while to sift the profiles this year.
My model did pretty well last time with 2 of its top 3 selections making the frame (Delta Work 3rd, tipped at 66/1, and Fiddlerontheroof 5th, 25/1) - not bad but alas no follow up to the winner at 40/1 in 2021.
The good news is that subsequent tweaks to the model (by deeper pedigree analysis) not only reconciled Noble Yeats' win (the first 7 year old to do so since WWII), ditto Santini's 4th and indeed Any Second Now's successive near misses, but they also yielded a "Eureka" moment that explained the one remaining "outlier" for the model from recent GNs (Gilgamboa's 4th in 2016).
So, while being encouraged by the current model methodology, this year's entries (with such a heavy component of unexposed youngsters) poses a serious test for it and will take time to sift thoroughly.
Last year, Freewheelin Dylan (so near to glory in 7th) and Delta Work both offered tremendous early value but a quick scan sadly reveals no such early slam dunk value bets. In any event, Bet365 are yet to go 5 places 1/4 odds to make an early e/w plunge appealing.
So, especially with the weights to be allocated to so many Irish entries uncertain (might be better off having the Irish handicapper frame the GN weights from now on), please bear with while I attempt to avoid missing another young winning contender from left field.
I can't say I'm ecstatic about how the changes to the race have now produced a test that is no longer to suited to out and out stayers but am hopeful that a stat-approach can still identify betting market anomalies and yield nice % returns on bets in the GN.
Fingers crossed.
More asap.
I was going to mention it earlier, but thought it out of turn :-)
As if the dismal British component of GN entries couldn’t get any worse IWILLDOIT is out.
The ground at Newbury is too quick to risk him in the Denham Chase and so he’ll be 1 short of the required 6 chase starts prior to weights allocation.
Fair play to Sam Thomas and connections for putting the horse first but what a ludicrous situation that a Welsh National and Warwick Classic Chase winner is deemed too inexperienced to line up.
Fucking shambles.
She was an amazing mare but that was 29 years ago when there were no specific race conditions aimed at protecting welfare.
It may well not happen this year (or p'raps there may be a runner that departs early at Fairyhouse for which it's deemed perfectly reasonable to run again at Liverpool) but we can be pretty sure that the trainer that ran Bless The Wings in both 12 days apart in 2018 will likely have a number of runners double-entered and there are no rules to address a minimum recovery time.
As so often is the case, while well-intentioned, the bureaucracy created is bollox.
IWILLDOIT supplemented for Saturday's 3m handicap chase at Ascot. Will qualify for the big one if he runs. Going is currently Good.
No hurry at that price IMHO.
I can't see them running him to win with the weights still to be allotted and the weather's going to be crucial to his chances in April. I love him on Soft if he's got 10.12 or thereabouts on his back (as looks likely) but at 20s I'd really want to see Soft in the Going description.
But you pays ya money you takes ya choice.
PS Actually I haven't placed any AP bets so far, since the Scrooge that is Bet365 Bob is still only quoting 4 places.
The team is taking shape though - more anon.
"Dan Skelton hits out at 'offensive' Grand National comments by BHA handicapper"
Dan Skelton has criticised the senior BHA jumps handicapper for what he described as "offensive" comments made in the wake of the poor British entry for the Randox Grand National.
After only 31 British-trained horses were put in the Aintree showpiece when it closed last week, Martin Greenwood, who frames the weights for the race, said: "I could only suggest it's a continuation of the demise of the British National Hunt scene and it's part of a general picture."
Those words angered Skelton, who provided two of the 31 and pointed to the cost of the initial entry, the skillset a horse needs to run in the National and a fall in the number of eligible runners as likely reasons for the smaller home challenge. He said on Tuesday: "I find the handicapper's comments offensive. He's an official of British racing and he shouldn't be making comments like that.
"We don't ask the referee as he comes off the pitch what he thinks. The official's job is to officiate. I thought it was a rather unhelpful comment."
Skelton said he was not surprised by the small British entry against 54 horses trained in Ireland, which has had a clean sweep of the first three places in each of the last four Nationals.
"It was probably to be expected," he said. "It costs £950 first entry, so you should only really be entering if you're going to get in the race and it's appropriate for your horse.
"Then you have to take into consideration the amount of horses who are actually eligible for it in Britain and that has diminished. I wouldn't use the word 'demise' but numbers are down. So you're only going to get those horses who are eligible entered. We definitely have a few less in Britain than perhaps we did.
"The Irish have got a massive back catalogue of strong stamina in National Hunt breeding, and the majority start in three-mile point-to-points as four- and five-year-olds. You're going to develop more of that type of horse in that system. It's not surprising they have more."
Skelton, who worked for Paul Nicholls when Neptune Collonges claimed the National for the yard in 2012, would dearly love to train the winner of the race himself, but believes he needs to be selective over who he deems a suitable contender for the "tough" challenge.
"I love the race," he said. "It's a fabulous public spectacle. I'd love to win it. When I won it when I worked with Paul Nicholls I was staggered by the public adoration of the winner. We thought we were fairly used to public interest in the horses but it blows your mind. That's great for the sport and we should be concentrating on the positives of the sport rather than using the word 'demise'.
"What you've got to remember about races like the National is that they're particularly tough. A horse who has a bad experience might never get over it. Putting a horse in that arena if it's not ready or suitable for it is sometimes not the right thing to do.
"So when you see entry numbers are down, there's a plethora of reasons and in a way I feel it's a responsible reaction. The more people that consider exactly what goes on, the better for us all. There's nothing very comfortable about seeing horses not complete."
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They're both right IMO.
Times used to be when British trainers had owners with the financial firepower to outbid the Irish for their the best young NH horses. Those days are long gone.
Iwilldoit set to miss Ascot and Grand National as clock ticks down to eligibility deadline
This year’s Randox Grand National has been ruled out for Iwilldoit even if he secures late qualification for the race by running at Ascot on Saturday.
Connections of Iwilldoit have lamented the qualifying criteria for the National, with last month’s Classic Chase winner needing one more run over fences before the end of the weekend to have contested the required six chases in order to compete at Aintree.
Iwilldoit was unable to run at Newbury last weekend due to the good going and the same scenario is predicted to unfold this week despite his entry in the LK Bennett Swinley Handicap Chase.
The going at Ascot is described as good with watering taking place and minimal rain forecast before the weekend.
Iwilldoit’s trainer Sam Thomas said: “We stuck him in at the weekend in case there was rain, but it’s very doubtful he’ll run as the ground has gone.
“He won’t be running in the Grand National this year anyway. It’ll be more for next season.”
The founder of the syndicate that owns Iwilldoit called last week for a review of the qualifying criteria horses have to pass to be eligible for the National.
Chris Morgan, who runs Diamond Racing, pointed to Iwilldoit’s record of four wins from five starts over fences, including the Welsh Grand National, Classic Chase and Welsh Grand National Trial, as evidence that he would be a suitable horse for the Aintree contest.
“He’s run in five chases and won four of them and it seems strange that he has to run in another one to qualify. Possibly they should look at the type of chases a horse wins, whether it’s a Graded or Class 2 race,” he said. “At the same time, you can understand why there is that mark as the Grand National is so testing on a horse.”
The absence of Iwilldoit will further weaken the British challenge for its most famous race. Only 31 of the 85 horses entered for this year’s National are trained in Britain and four of the top five in the betting are in Irish yards.
Those include last year’s winner Noble Yeats, whose success for trainer Emmet Mullins made it five wins for Ireland in the last six editions.
There are so many things wrong with UK racing. Nearly as bad as CAFC and would orobably take as long to rectify the state of it.