FOLLOWING another hugely successful Cheltenham Festival for Irish-trained horses, thoughts now turn to the Grand National, a race won only once by an Irish horse in the past 10 years.

Anibale Fly was the big mover in the market following his excellent third in the Gold Cup yesterday. Tony Martin’s horse is now best priced 16/1 while Total Recall remains the second favourite (12/1) behind Blaklion, despite falling in the big race yesterday.

Earlier in the week, Tiger Roll stated his case for Aintree when winning the Cross Country Chase in impressive style. The Gigginstown horse has a similar profile to Cause Of Causes, who won over the banks last season before moving on to find just one too good at Aintree.

MAGGIO ON TARGET

Meanwhile, James Griffin, assistant to his father Patrick, has reported that the 13-year-old Maggio is in line to take his chance in the Liverpool showpiece.

Maggio has a good record at the venue, having won a handicap chase at the 2016 Grand National Festival by 12 lengths, and was unfortunately ruled out of the race last season when tweaking himself during his final schooling session. He has finished fourth on both of his starts this season and will need to run at least once over fences in order to qualify for the race.

Griffin said: “Maggio is 13, but he shows no signs of ageing and he still has loads of ability. He is in great form at home and age is nothing to him.

“He has to run over fences before the Grand National in order to run in the race, so we will target either a conditions chase at Down Royal on March 17 or a veterans’ chase at Carlisle on March 18th.”