Grand National Lucky Dip
We've picked a grand national horse at random for you. You can also pick your horse based on it star sign, the colour of the Jockeys silks or where the horse is trained. Good Luck!
Johnnywho
Johnnywho heads to Aintree under the care of the revitalised father and son training partnership of Jonjo and AJ O’Neill and he goes there with an outstanding chance on the back of his career-best victory in the Ultima Handicap at the Cheltenham Festival.
This son of Califet has taken a while to fulfil his promise over fences, despite scoring on chasing debut at Carlisle, he made connections wait for nine races before getting his head in front again. In the interim, he had been run out of last year’s Kim Muir by just a neck and then failed by half-a-length in a 57k handicap at Ascot in December.
All was forgiven when he held off the strong late challenge of Jagwar to take the 84k first price in the Ultima, which is one of the strongest trials for the Grand National. Corach Rambler won that race before heading on to Aintree to capture the National and Johnnywho appears to have a great chance of completing the same double.
The O’Neill team gave their charge a wind operation before Cheltenham as well as adding first-time cheekpieces and the combination worked the oracle as the nine-year-old gelding could be spotted travelling easily with two to jump. A fall at the last by Search For Glory aided Johnnywho’s cause but he was extremely tenacious in seeing off long-time leader Quebecois and the aforementioned Jagwar.
As the weights for the Grand National were framed before the Cheltenham Festival, Johnnywho’s Aintree rating has been set at 146 whereas the handicapper has now raised his new overall mark to 152 meaning he gets to race in the National six pounds “well-in”. He does have stamina to prove for the Grand National trip, especially as he didn’t appear to see out the 3m 5f trip in the Irish National last year, but that was on ground that was probably softer than ideal. The wind operation and headgear will obviously have to work for a second time but with his advantage in the handicap he does appear to have an exceptionally good chance of winning the Grand National for a second time for Jonjo O’Neill.