YOU always remember your first. Early Mist or E.S.B. or L’Escargot or Red Rum in 1973 or Red Rum in 1974 or Red Rum in 1977.

Or West Tip or Bobbyjo or Papillon or Monty’s Pass or Minella Times. Or I Am Maximus. It doesn’t matter when it was or who won it or who lost it, but it’s etched in your memory because it was your first.

It’s not the race that it once was, we know that. You don’t get Des Lynam standing in the brook at Becher’s Brook any more on Grand National morning and marvelling at the height of the obstacle that towers above him, and you don’t get the fences stretching from one rail to the other, so that the loose horses have no run-off, nor the possibility for carnage that that creates.

But it’s still a great race, it’s still a momentous occasion. You’re still going to have each of the four small people who live with you looking for a fiver ‘to have on something’, and that doesn’t happen for any other race. And then, not many things are the things that they once were. Even nostalgia is not what it used to be.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the length of the Grand National shortlist. Just the 34 runners these days, not 40 or 39 or 38, so, in theory, your shortlist should be shorter.

But, ironically and somewhat paradoxically, it seems that you could make a case for more contenders in each of the last two years than you could in years gone by.

On the list

I Am Maximus has to be on this year’s list again. True, he is 8lb higher in the handicap than he was on this day last year, but you can easily argue that he would have won last year with 8lb more on his back.

He was just one of the many horses who were in the mix on the run to the final fence 12 months ago, but the turn of foot that he showed from the Elbow, that was impressive.

He jumped the fences well too and, the ride that Paul Townend gave him, flush against the inside rail but still with racing room, it was one of the rides of the season.

You hardly even noticed his tendency to go to his left. He has been well beaten in his two races this season to date, but they were in the two best staying chases in Ireland, the Savills Chase and the Irish Gold Cup.

And anyway, you got all the information that you needed from those runs: that he was healthy and well. Today is the day.

Today is the day for Intense Raffles too. Tom Gibney has done some job with Simon Munir and Isaac Souede’s horse, facilitating his development from talented and well-bred homebred who had lost his way a little in France, to Irish Grand National winner and Aintree Grand National contender.

He was superb in winning the Irish Grand National last year under J.J. Slevin, he went on again when Any Second Now came to him. And he was only six then. He should have developed and progressed again from then to now.

He was well beaten in his two hurdle races at Navan during the season and, in that context, it was important that he put up a performance last time on his return to fences in the Bobbyjo Chase, and he did.

He went down by just three-parts of a length to the Thyestes Chase winner Nick Rockett, giving him 3lb. Today, he receives 12lb from his conqueror that day.

All Intense Raffles’ best runs have been on soft or heavy ground at Fairyhouse and, if today’s race were to be run on soft or heavy ground at Fairyhouse, you suspect that he would be clear favourite, about half the price that he is.

That said, he has the right profile for the race; Irish National winner, Bobbyjo Chase big-runner, and he is probably still really well handicapped on a mark of 151.

Cross country

Stumptown has plot the Tiger Roll route to Aintree via the cross-country chase track at Cheltenham in December and again in March, and we know that fluency over the varied obstacles in the infield at Cheltenham usually begets fluency over the spruce ones at Aintree these days, with their inviting shape and their softer bellies.

His stable companion Vanillier finished second in the race two years ago, he goes there in really good form and he is back down to his mark of 2023, even if he would probably have preferred it if there had been a little more rain.

Nick Rockett has the profile for the race, a Thyestes Chase winner, a Bobbyjo Chase winner, and Minella Indo is 1lb lower than he was when he hit the front on the run-in last year, and Minella Cocooner, last year’s Bet365 Gold Cup winner, will have his ground, as will Hewick, who could flick through these fences as if they aren’t there.

Beauport is the Midlands National winner and he has a real chance, even if he might prefer to be going right-handed, and Three Card Brag has been ticking along on the road to today nicely under the radar, and Kandoo Kid is the Coral Gold Cup winner, and Senior Chief could out-run his odds.

But the value may lie with Iroko and Perceval Legallois. Iroko is only 8/1 now, but he is a classy horse who has the potential to be a fair way better than the handicap rating of 152 off which he will race today.

Winner of the Martin Pipe Hurdle in 2023, he had a season to forget last year, after he was so impressive in winning his beginners’ chase at Warwick on his chasing bow.

Even so, he got back to the track last season after recovering from a setback that reportedly looked set to rule him out for the entire season and, on his second run back, off an interrupted preparation, he ran a big race to finish second to Inothewayurthinkin in the Grade 1 Mildmay Chase at Aintree.

That form obviously looks even better now than it did at the time.

Iroko hasn’t won in four attempts this season, but he has been building up to this all year, and he kept on well to finish a close-up second behind Grey Dawning in a listed chase at Kelso last time, getting just 3lb from a horse who was rated 10lb superior. That should have brought him forward nicely for today.

Perceval Legallois ticks a lot of the National boxes \ Healy Racing

Strong at the finish

J.P. McManus’ horse still has to prove his stamina for this extreme trip, but he stays three miles and one furlong well, he was strong at the finish of the Mildmay last year, and there is every chance that he will get it okay. And he is only seven, he has the potential to progress again now. He is a really exciting young staying chaser.

Perceval Legallois is different, in that he has already bagged a big staying handicap chase, but we may not have got to the ceiling of his ability yet.

He has been high profile for a while, he was sent off as favourite for the Galway Plate in July and for the Kerry National in September, but he finally put it all together at Leopardstown in December when he won the Paddy Power Chase.

Gavin Cromwell’s horse is 11lb higher in the handicap now than he was then, but he won with plenty in hand in the end, the race has worked out really well since, and he went on himself and won a listed handicap hurdle back at the Dublin Racing Festival in February.

He hasn’t run since then, he goes to Aintree fresh and well, he should stay the trip, he will love the ground and, trained by a man who is having a phenomenal season, an eight-year-old who has raced nine times over fences, he has a great profile for the race.

Iroko, 8/1 (generally), 1 point each-way

Perceval Legallois, 11/1 (generally), 1 point each-way