Nina Carberry banned for Aintree Grand National

Two of jump racing’s high-profile amateur jockeys are set to miss the Grand National next month because of bans picked up in recent days.

Sam Waley-Cohen and Nina Carberry have both been given week-long bans which, contrary to initial reports, will mean that both are prevented from taking part in the famous Aintree race, in which both have fared well while falling short of actual victory.

Waley-Cohen has already entered an appeal against the seven-day ban he was given at Carlisle on Sunday, when he eased down Long Run after the final fence and lost third place close to home. The decision by the stewards to act against him has proved controversial, with the jockey’s defenders saying he was merely acting in the best interests of an exhausted former Gold Cup winner who had been off the course for two years.

“It’s disappointing to pick up a ban and I am going to be appealing as I didn’t feel it reflected the situation fully,” Waley-Cohen said. “I think the main thing is to praise the horse, who has been great for racing for a number of years.”

Waley-Cohen’s prospects at appeal do not appear bright, since head-on footage of the race shows him looking under his right arm before briefly ceasing to ride out the 11-year-old on the run-in. Seconds later, on realising that two horses were about to challenge on his left, Waley-Cohen resumed pushing his mount but it was too late and he lost third place by about two lengths.

Long Run was retired after his Carlisle defeat, leaving his rider without an obvious Grand National mount. However, Waley-Cohen has won six times over the famous green fences, in the Becher Chase, the Topham and the Fox Hunters, putting him into the conversation for any spare rides.

Carberry, meanwhile, has completed the course four times from five Grand National rides, including last year on First Lieutenant, a ride she was given only because Bryan Cooper was suspended for whip-related offences. This time, Carberry has herself fallen foul of the whip rules for her winning ride in the Foxhunter Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, resulting in a seven-day ban that will end on Grand National day.

Bans for amateur jockeys are only enforced on days when there are races specifically aimed at them, leading at least one paper to report on Monday that Waley-Cohen could compete in the Grand National. But this is not the case, as the British Horseracing Authority has clarified, because the race after the National is restricted to amateurs and conditional jockeys.

Thistlecrack’s many new fans could get two more chances to see him this jumps season, according to Colin Tizzard, trainer of the unchallenged World Hurdle winner. The eight-year-old, who hacked up by seven lengths at the Cheltenham Festival last week, is being aimed at a race during Aintree’s Grand National meeting and could go over to Ireland for the Punchestown Festival three weeks later.

“As long as the ground is OK and the horse is in good form, I don’t see any reason not to take him to Aintree,” Tizzard said. “I know he’s had four runs already [this winter]but his races have been nicely spaced out and he seems to have come out of Cheltenham very well.

“He came back home well, he hasn’t turned a hair and doesn’t look like he had a particularly hard race, although when you get into that top league the races are bound to take something out of you. We’re very happy with him and, as long as the ground is on the soft side of good, he’ll go to Aintree and we’ll see where we are after that.”

(Guardian service)