SATURDAY’S Welsh Grand National was worth the wait. A two-week delay meant that Raz De Maree was 13 years old, not 12, but it didn’t stop him winning it.

It was a fine training performance by Gavin Cromwell, only the second Irish-trained winner in the history of the race. The realisation of a goal that was just about a year in the making, the coming-to-fruition of a plan that was hatched 12 months previously, when Jimmy Swan’s horse finished second in the race, beaten a length and three-quarters by Native River, who was rated 13lb higher the following week.

Raz De Maree raced off a mark that was just 1lb higher than last year’s mark on Saturday, and that was without taking into account the fact that the excellent James Bowen claimed 5lb, whereas Ger Fox claimed just 3lb last year. So he was actually 1lb lower.

It all makes sense now in one, eh, sense. He was handicapped to run a big race. Hindsight being 20-20 and all, and fair play to you if you had the requisite foresight. And horses for courses, horses for races. The Welsh National is one of those races in which a proven ability to handle the track (and soft ground at the track) is a significant asset. More than at most tracks.

MAMMOTH PERFORMANCE

Even so, it was still a mammoth performance by a 13-year-old.

Even if he was really a 12-year-old for analysis purposes, he still had to overcome a considerable age stat. The Welsh National is a young horse’s race. Before last Saturday, only one horse aged in double figures – Mountainous in 2015 – had won the race since Riverside Boy won it in 1993.

And if you count Mountainous as a 10-year-old – which he was, even though he was actually 11, as the 2015 race was run in January 2016 – then no horse aged older than 10 had won the race since 1967, and no 12-year-old had won it since 1950.

It was some performance by the horse, and it was some performance by the trainer, to get the Shaanmer gelding to put up the best performance of his career, 42 runs and almost eight years after it began.