Gm, Equinauts

The sun is out and the beer gardens will be full for the Masters and Grand National week.

One of THE best weeks of the year. Enjoy it people.

Let’s dive in.

HEADLINE ROUNDUP

🐎 AINTREE STARTS TOMORROW

Aintree’s Grand National meeting kicks off tomorrow and features FOUR Grade 1’s on the 7 race card with a lovely bumper to close out the first day!

We love Aintree, look what we’ve done before:

As we do for every big meeting, we’re going to be previewing EVERY single race and coming up with the verdict horses for you to ponder, play or do as you choose. We always suggest putting small pots aside for the major meetings like Cheltenham, the Grand National and the DRF so that you can enjoy yourself without it mattering. Always keep it fun and then you can stake bigger on your stronger fancies and NAP’s.

The one thing we really do think every one should be playing is the Tote’s Placepot.

On Thursday the pot is £250k guaranteed whilst Friday and Saturday are 400k minimum, and we do think they’ll be well over HALF A MIL!

Don’t forget, we landed the Placepot on the Friday of Cheltenham:

If you haven’t got a Tote account, get one here and get familiar with it today so you’re read to go tomorrow as it is highly likely we land on over the Grand National meeting:

Tote | Offers

We love the Tote. You literally can’t get restricted on it, so if you’re a big stakes punter then you can get your singles on with them with the benefit of SP guarantee for the shorties and the pool prizes are massive for small money.

As the great Willie Mullins once said: ‘GSI’. Get stuck in!

📜 HISTORY IN THE MAKING?

I AM MAXIMUS head’s the betting market of 34 runners declared for Saturday’s famous Grand National as he bids to recapture his title, a feat not done since RED RUM in 1977!

Given he won the race in ‘24 and finished an oh so close 2nd last year, we imagine Paul Townend couldn’t do anything but ride him, so we feel the ‘Paul Townend’s choice’ stuff doesn’t really matter but still, Townend is onboard lol.

I AM MAXIMUM is one of seven(!) JP McManus owned horses with JAGWAR and IROKO snapping at his heels in the market sitting at 10 and 12/1 respectively. The latter, IROKO was found to have been a little under the weather when blowing out at Cheltenham so a better run is expected but it’s the former, JAGWAR, who the Greenall and Guerriero yard are most bullish on of the two.

Only Mullins has more runners in the race than JP (lol) as he saddles nine!

Not a premium subscriber yet but want to get the whole Grand National meeting wrapped up in one fell swoop? Be sure to dip your toe in tomorrow,

our premium newsletter is literally only the price of a pint of Guinness on course!

💧 WATER

Good to soft, good in places is the current going for Aintree as they continue to water all three courses ahead of the big meeting.

Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma and her team have applied significant amounts of water across all three tracks—the National, Mildmay, and hurdles courses—in the days leading up to the meeting. Around 8–10 millimetres of water per day was initially added, followed by further watering of 6–8 millimetres today, with the aim of maintaining a consistent “good to soft” surface throughout. Warm temperatures reaching close to 20°C, combined with dry and breezy conditions, meant that without intervention the ground would have quickly dried out.

Good to soft all over is the aim for raceday and officials have been carefully monitoring the weather, with the possibility of light showers later in the week, but have taken a proactive stance to ensure the surface remains suitable from the opening day through to Saturday’s big one.

We’ll be eyeing up all the good ground horses then!

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