WINNING FORM FOR THE NATIONAL: Daqman, who made a profit on all three Aintree days last year, has had four winners at the meeting so far this week:
Yesterday’s winners
WON 6-1 WELLINGTON ARCH (BETDAQ 9.7)
WON 10-3 GOLD DANCER
Aintree opening day
WON 7-4 BARTON SNOW (Foxhunters)
WON evens JANGO BAIE (Aintree Bowl)
HE LANDED THE 1-2-3 LAST YEAR: Daqman named the first three home in correct order for last year’s Grand National at Aintree and opposed Iroko (fourth), the favourite, with his Lays Logic. The Grand National tricast paid £7,665.
1: NICK ROCKETT WON 33-1
2: I AM MAXIMUS 2nd 7-1
3: GRANGECLARE WEST 3rd 33-1 (BETDAQ 50.0)
CONTI SET FOR A KNOCK-OUT
⭕ 12.45 Aintree Kala Conti thrashed subsequent Cheltenham Arkle winner, Kargese, 16 lengths at Cork.
Salvator Mundi is improving but must give the mare 7lb and represents the form of Romeo Coolio, who just pipped Kargese a neck in the Irish Arkle.
⭕ 1.55 Aintree Gordon Elliott has won this novices’ hurdle four years running, notably with Bettertimesahead, winner of Thursday’s Aintree Hurdle.
The same stable’s Ballyfad was stepping up in trip when kicked at the start in the Turners at Cheltenham but still ran respectably.
⭕ 3.05 Aintree Henry De Bromhead won this last year with Hiddenvalley Lake, who has every chance of back-to-back success.
But second-string Air Of Entitlement, may be his first. Climbing in both trip and quality, the seven-year-old daughter of Westerner is out of a half-sister to an Irish Grand National winner.
THE WINNER’S UNDER ORDERS
⭕ 4.00 Aintree (GRAND NATIONAL) over 4m 2.5f and 30 fences); winner £500,000; going good to soft
🐎 1: FINAL ORDERS (pictured below) Gordon Elliott used cross-country success for both Grand National strikes by Tiger Roll. Irish rival Gavin Cromwell could do the same today.
Gavin had Final Orders score in the same Cheltenham Festival race under Conor Stone-Walsh, the stable’s Topham winning jockey over the National fences yesterday.
At Cheltenham, they beat by 20 lengths his stablemate Vanillier, the one-time Grand National runner-up, who had won the Punchestown cross-country in February for the second year running.
Final Orders remains on a 147 rating, carrying 10st 5lb in today’s big race, the same weight as Panic Attack, another who will like the ground.
🐎 2: PANIC ATTACK represents Dan Skelton, new British champion and renowned as a target trainer, picking the right race for the right horse and vice versa!
Panic Attack looked special when she stepped up to 3m 2f in the autumn and won the Newbury Gold Cup. When run as the Hennessy, it was regarded as key to the National.
🐎 3: GRANGECLARE WEST goes for a key-race hat-trick in that he would be the third consecutive winner of the Bobbyjo Chase to land the Grand National, after I Am Maximus (2024) and Nick Rockett last year.
Third behind that pair in the 2025 National after a mistake at the last, Grangeclare West might have won or at least finished second in front of the 2024 winner, I Am Maximus. Fourth home was Iroko.
🐎 4: JOHNNYWHO Another key race is the Ultima at Cheltenham, which produced the 2023 hero Corach Rambler and now fields Johnnywho and Jagwar, the one-two in March.
Johnnywho’s Ultima win was a surprise to the yard, with stablemate Iroko ‘expected’ but he flopped and scoped badly afterwards.
It puts me off that Jagwar would be only the third seven-year-old to score since 1940 and that the big horse and the whippet by comparison, Johnnywho, both wear tongue-tie and cheekpieces.
The National is not normally a race for desperate dressing-up to try to squeeze extra from the horse. It worked for Tiger Roll but he’d already won it once and was still only nine.
I Am Maximus is 10, fully exposed after 16 chases. Compare with Panic Attack, whose chasing career really started in November.
The last top contenders I remember tongue-tied and in blinkers or cheekpieces were both serial losers in the race: Vanillier (form in the race 200) and Delta Work (3U2). So near is yet so far in the National.
The pundits always praise those who have starred in the race before. In fact, the Red Rums and Tiger Rolls are extremely rare; 10 of the last 11 winners had not even run in a previous National.
Betdaq Betting Exchange (Daqman’s order in): 42.0 Final Orders (6.6 four places), 10.0 Panic Attack, 11.0 Grangeclare West, 14.0 Johnnywho.
DAQMAN’S BETS
on Betdaq Betting Exchange
12.45 Aintree (win 30)
BET 9pts win KALA CONTI
★ 1.55 Aintree (win 30, nap)
BET 9pts win BALLYFAD
3.05 Aintree (win-50 bull’s-eye bet)
BET 6pts win AIR OF ENTITLEMENT
4.00 Aintree (win-100 and 3 x win-50 bull’s-eye bets)
BET 2.5pts win FINAL ORDERS
(3pts four places to win 20)
BET 5pts win PANIC ATTACK
BET 5pts win GRANGECLARE WEST
BET 3.75pts win JOHNNYWHO
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