Flooring Porter

66/1, Gavin Cromwell

HAVING been sweet on the idea of him as a type for the modern style of the Grand National for some time, there certainly was no disappointment when Flooring Porter was given a 1lb lower mark than he holds in Ireland this week.

For a dual Stayers’ Hurdle winner with a preference for running left-handed, a mark of 157 doesn’t look overly harsh - provided he’s still got his old engine in order.

When considering the first three home in last year’s race were either Grade 1 winners or 163+, and the previous edition’s 1-2-3-4 were already winners at the highest level, you need class for this race. Flooring Porter has proven that many times.

When given a chance against inferior, but still useful, opposition in the 2024 Kerry National, he produced a demolition job off his rating of 149. He won’t get to boss the Aintree feature in the same way, but his current weight of 11st 1lb means he could have the addition of Keith Donoghue - a master of the cross country style discipline.

Having been off for 486 days beforehand, there was always a sense that his comeback run at Cheltenham last month was a start designed to serve a qualification purpose. We’ll see a much different version of him on April 11th and he seems to be overlooked at 66/1 from an each-way perspective.

Lecky Watson

33/1, Willie Mullins

IN the old version of the Grand National, which presented a significantly tougher jumping test than is now the case, you would have had real reservations about the likes of Lecky Watson, who has the ability to throw in a sloppy leap every now and then.

However, the much more lenient fences ought to be just fine for last season’s Grade 1 Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase winner, who gets in off an appealing weight of 11st 2lb (mark of 158) for a horse of his quality.

There were definitely grounds for marking up Lecky Watson’s Christmas seventh in the Savills Chase, having probably raced on the less-favoured part of the track when it mattered (Stellar Story a similar candidate and also is interesting for Aintree at a comparably big price).

He never clicked in the Irish Gold Cup last time (made a bad mistake at the sixth and pulled up before three out), but his whole season feels like it might well have been geared towards the spring and a big pot like this.