THE victory of Tiger Roll in the Grand National was not only one of the closest in the history of the race, with the eight-year-old joined on the line by Pleasant Company having looked set for a comfortable success, but a remarkable one for a flat-bred gelding seemingly not built to be jumping fences at all, let alone the fearsome ones at Aintree.

Tiger Roll was bred by former Ballydoyle vet Gerry O’Brien out of Swiss Roll, a daughter of O’Brien’s foundation mare On Air, and is therefore a half-sister to Park Express Stakes winner Pollen and a full-sister to Berenson, who was second to Dubawi in the National Stakes.