Do you remember your first? I remember my first. Red Rum, 1977. Couldn’t forget it.
I didn’t back Red Rum. I wanted to back Red Rum, not because he was my selection after hours of careful study, but because he was the only horse in the race that I had heard of. The problem was that my older brother also wanted to back Red Rum, and you knew how that one was going to work out. The same way as the Magic Roundabout car incident worked out (not in my favour), that’s how.
So my brother backed Red Rum and I backed Davy Lad, not because I knew that Davy Lad was well-handicapped or had won the Gold Cup, or because he had a good rider or a good trainer, but because he was Irish, and that logic appealed to me. Of course, I didn’t know that Davy Lad had won the Gold Cup, and that no Gold Cup winner since Golden Miller had followed up in the Grand National, and I certainly didn’t know that, by 2012, we would have the internet (God knows we waited long enough for someone to invent it) and that still no Gold Cup winner would have followed up at Aintree.
I didn’t know that Davy Lad had fallen at the third fence. I remember watching Red Rum going clear, the only horse on the television screen, and asking my dad where Davy Lad was. Ah he fell ages ago. So I cheered Red Rum on. At least if my brother had 25p on the 7/1 winner, there could be a packet of Refreshers and a toffee in it for me as a consolation prize.
It’s going to be difficult for Synchronised tomorrow. Stats schmats, I know, and he doesn’t know that no Gold Cup winner has gone on to win the National the same year since before World War II started, and all that. Garrison Savannah went mighty close in 1991 and Rough Quest was second in the Gold Cup before winning the National, so it can be done.
However, there are two main elements conspiring against Synchronised. Firstly, he is usually a horse who needs time between his races. Jonjo O’Neill decided not to run him in the Hennessy in February because he hadn’t recovered from the hard race that he had had in winning the Lexus, so there is a chance that it will take much more than four weeks and a day to recover from the lung-bursting effort he put in to win the Gold Cup. Put that along with the Gold Cup/Grand National stat, and it becomes a significant negative.
Secondly, he will find it very difficult to carry 11st 10lb to victory. No horse has carried 11st 9lb or more to victory since Red Rum in 1974 (he only had 11st 8lb on his back when he won it in 1977), and he was a Grand National legend. Before Rummy, you have to go back to Freebooter in 1950. That is a huge stat to have to overcome.
Of course, there are many positives. There is the trainer and the rider, for starters, and the fact that he is 7lb well-in, and the fact that he is the Gold Cup winner and probably the best horse in the race, and the fact that his trainer reports him in fine form. However, all of that is factored into his odds, and the negatives are sufficient to make him an opposable favourite for me.
I still think that Sunnyhillboy has a big chance. I backed him a while ago, before Cheltenham, thinking that he was shaping up to be the Jonjo/JP Grand National horse, that AP would ride him and that he would go off near-favourite on the day. Then Synchronised went and scuppered that one by winning the Gold Cup and getting himself on track for the National, making himself too attractive a ride for AP to turn down, and suddenly Sunnyhillboy was a drifter.
I backed him again after he won the Kim Muir though, nothing went right for him through that race and I thought that he did remarkably well to win it in the circumstances. He proved his stamina by winning that race, and when he finished third in the Irish National last year after getting hampered at a crucial stage of the race, and he has always had a touch of class, second in the Byrne Group Plate in 2010, third in Cheltenham’s December Gold Cup later that year.
He has been trained for the race for sure, he is the ideal age for it as a nine-year-old, he has a lovely racing weight of 10st 5lb, he is the best-handicapped horse in the race (10lb well-in as against Synchronised’s 7lb) and he is even by the right sire in Old Vic, who was responsible for Comply Or Die and Don’t Push It. With normal luck in-running, if he takes to the place at all, he could run a big race.
Others on my shortlist (fairly long one): Rare Bob, Neptune Collonges, Becauseicouldntsee, Killyglen and Cappa Bleu, and Tatenen is probably a little over-priced at 250 on Betdaq.
If forced to choose between all of those as a second bet, I would probably say Becauseicouldntsee, who chased home Sunnyhillboy in the Kim Muir. I have come around to Noel Glynn’s horse in the last few days. He is a bigger price now than he was for the race last year (fell at the second fence) when he was just an eight-year-old (Bindaree is the only eight-year-old winner in 18 years), and he can race off a 2lb lower mark than last year’s. He comes into the race in top form as well, he stays, he is the right age, he has a lovely racing weight, and he has a top horseman in Davy Condon for company.
Hope my brother doesn’t want to back either of those now …
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