The smallest field in over 20 years will compete for Ireland’s richest jumps race, the €500,000 Boylesports Irish Grand National, at Fairyhouse on Easter Monday.
It makes a sour April 1st gag that the 21-runner field might have been assembled for a fraction of the monster pot although the Irish National’s traditional Easter date once again transcends such details.
The value of the association between the National and its Easter Monday slot was underlined in 1988 when an experiment in moving the race to a different place in the calendar got quickly binned.
Memories of Arkle cementing his status as the best ever 60 years ago tops an evocative National heritage that includes other stellar names such as Flyingbolt (1966) and Desert Orchid in 1990 which is synonymous with Easter.
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It has proved a double-edged sword this year as an early Easter comes just over a fortnight after Cheltenham and less than two weeks before Aintree.
The recent preponderance of testing ground conditions makes any quick turnaround of runners unrealistic as a necessarily limited number of suitable horses gets spread thinly around a glut of Spring festival options.
Last year’s winner I Am Maximus is among those Irish horses waiting for Liverpool while once again there is no cross-channel runner at Fairyhouse.
Considering Irish horses are set to pack out the Aintree National, it might be counterintuitive to make a case for more raiders at Fairyhouse.
But a topweight rated 148, and a bottom-weight on 120 getting into a race designed to have a maximum 30 runners suggests a trick has been missed.
As it stands, the National field is numerically bolstered by a seven-strong Gordon Elliott team while Willie Mullins’s trio of runners includes the long-time ante-post favourite, Nick Rockett.
His 146-rating originally looked set to leave him on an attractive racing weight only to now face into humping 11.10 around almost 3¾ miles on soft ground.
Mullins big-race dominance has been the season’s recurring theme and a third win in six years might prove relatively underwhelming in story terms for a race that famously threw up the 150-1 Freewheelin Dylan as winner in 2021.
However, there could be a more discomfiting outcome from an official perspective as Good Time Jonny represents controversial local trainer Tony Martin.
Last week he was handed a three-month licence suspension by an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board appeals panel who agreed that an original penalty on the back of a failed drugs test by the Martin-trained Firstman at Dundalk last year was too lenient.
A six-month suspension, suspended for two years, has been upgraded to a three-month period that begins on May 15th.
Firstman was a third Martin-trained winner in four years to fail a dope test and after a prolonged period of drug allegations that have bedevilled Irish racing, the prospect of Good Time Jonny in the spotlight come 5.15pm on Monday will have various authorities shifting in their seats.
Martin has said very testing ground would be a negative to Good Time Jonny’s chances although he has proven big race credentials as a Pertemps winner over flights at last year’s Cheltenham Festival.
Those who follow horses-for-courses will be all over another bottom-weight, Where’s Frankie, a four-time Fairyhouse winner who represents Skerries-based trainer Karl Thornton.
Intense Raffles represents Tom Gibney who scored with Lion Na Bearnai in 2012 and he would be a popular local winner for a Fairyhouse attendance expected to top 16,000.
Jack Kennedy has opted for Where It All Began from the Elliott team and it’s easy to see why considering his National Trial success at Punchestown in February. He has since run well at Cheltenham and should relish the trip and the conditions.
Where It All Began ran away from the highly fancied We’llhavewan at Punchestown. The latter is Willie Mullins’s second-string who has a slight weight swing with his old rival now but also has Kieran Callaghan’s 5lb claim to help him.
If We’llhavewan represents betting value in the big race, Maxxum could do the same in an earlier Grade Two hurdle where Zarak The Brave is tackling a 2½ mile trip for the first time. Paul Townend’s decision to opt for Saint Sam over Appreciate It in another Grade Two is hard to ignore.
