5.30pm update: Emotional win for Woollacott
Greg Wood: After the success of Lalor in the Grade One Top Novice Hurdle, the Aintree winner’s enclosure was thick with emotion for the trainer Kayley Woollacott, whose husband, Richard, was found dead in January at the age of 40.
Lalor took a bumper event at this meeting 12 months ago to give Richard Woollacott his first Grade Two winner, and Lalor’s two-length victory yesterday was the first at the highest level for the West Country stable, where Kayley took over the licence after her husband’s death.
“It’s a really emotional day and obviously I had a little bit of help from up there,” Wollacott said. “This was a really special horse for me and Richard. It’s unreal, we loved the horse from the moment he came to our yard.
“Richard went to look at him and came back and said: ‘I’ve got to have this horse, I’ve got to find a way of having him.’ He turned up big, beautiful, backward and a bit gormless but lovely, and we’ve always been really excited about him.”
“The horses have really kept everything going and me on the straight and narrow. They’ve been a big help and having ones like him in the yard make you want to do it. I’m so pleased for the owners, they’ve stuck by me and been so loyal, and it’s worked out.
“Racing is one of the toughest games but it has shown how supportive it can be. [Racing people] have helped me find my feet.”
The Topham Handicap Chase over the Grand National fences was run on heavy ground for the first time since 2001 when seven of 24 starters completed the course. Ultragold led home 14 finishers from a field of 27, and there were no reports of injuries.
2.15pm update: National to be run on very testing ground
Greg Wood: The Grand National at Aintree on Saturday afternoon will be run in the most demanding conditions for almost 20 years after 5mm of rain and then steady drizzle at the course on Friday changed the official going on the course to heavy, soft in places.
The National has not been staged on heavy ground since 2001, when a total of 40 runners faced the starter but only four completed the course, including two that had been remounted. Nearly a third of the field was taken out of the race when a loose horse ran down the take-off side of the Canal Turn on the first circuit, and just seven were still standing after jumping the water with a full circuit of the track to go.
“The ground is going to ride on the easier side,” Andrew Tulloch, Aintree’s clerk of the course, said on Friday, “but hopefully the rain should clear through and we should be dry tonight and tomorrow.”
Three runners were scratched from the original final field of 40 as a result of the change in the going, with all three being replaced by horses on the “reserve” list for the race.
Minella Rocco, who had been due to carry top weight of 11st 10lb, was replaced in the field by Thunder And Roses, the Irish Grand National winner in 2015, while his absence also meant that the weights for the race were raised by 1lb with Blaklion taking over as the new top weight.
Vicente, the winner of the Scottish Grand National for the last two years, was replaced by Sue Smith’s Delusionofgrandeur, and Paul Nicholls’s chaser will now attempt to complete a hat-trick at Ayr next weekend, while the withdrawal of Beeves shortly before the 1pm deadline for replacements gave amateur rider Sam Waley-Cohen a last-minute place in the National aboard Robert Walford’s Walk In The Mill.
