THE 2024 Grand National was a much-changed race, and those alterations have been debated enough without me giving a watery take beyond to say that they have felt inevitable over the past few years.

Hailing the changes as success or failure based on a one-race sample is risky. However; this year may have gone off without major incident but each race is an independent event and a 34-strong field competing over a marathon trip seems as likely as not to produce its share of pandemonium.

Perhaps the most notable change in the race itself was the number of horses with a chance in the closing stages; by my rough visuals, there were about 15 horses in the mix coming to two out which would not be typical in more traditional runnings.

The two other races on the National course at the meeting produced more mixed results in this regard; again using rough visuals, there were about six with a chance jumping the second last in the hunter chase, 10 or 12 with a live chance at the same point in the Topham.

Those numbers don’t seem logical when considering the different races, the expectation that the longer distance race would see the field more strung out, but the steadier pace of the Grand National seemed a big factor and, perhaps, the background of the jockeys involved.

Moreso than in any other running, the Grand National field was dominated by Irish-trained horses and so it was with jockeys, 21 of the 32 riders in the race based in Ireland where steadier paces are engrained in the riding culture.

This was not the case in either the hunter chase (five of the 22 riders Irish-based) or the Topham (six of the 24 riders Irish-based) though given the likely make-up of Grand National fields in the near-term, one can only expect Irish-based riders to continue to take the bulk of the mounts.

Another feature of this year’s race, as had been the case in 2023, was the importance of a position near the inside rail. Paul Townend showed this in extreme on I Am Maximus, but the first four home all raced in the inner half of the field, the fifth Kitty’s Light and the eighth Galia Des Liteaux doing well when considering their wider trips.

I Am Maximus was already on an amazing run since last Easter when he won the Irish Grand National but this crowned one of the great 12 month periods for a staying chaser in recent memory; two Grand Nationals, a Grade 1 novice chase over an intermediate trip and another Grade 2, while also taking in two more Grade 1s.

He has come a long way from the novice chaser that wouldn’t keep straight in late 2022 and his new rating of 169 (was running off 159 here) marks him down as a Gold Cup contender, though that mark was achieved in a race quite different to the blue riband.

Given he has his own way of jumping, a flat track may suit him better than an undulating one, though he might just be one that is putting together late in his career, though he is hardly past it as an eight-year-old with just 10 chase starts.

He may be too high in the weights to repeat in the race next year but his owner, who has a notably strong team of staying chasers, had a couple of others shape well down the field, and they may be able to return to the race in 2025.

Meetingofthewaters did best of the younger horses to finish seventh, shaping better than the result too, as he was keen and his jumping faltered in the final quarter of the race. A mistake four out was costly as he had to work to get back into the race thereafter, doing well to be travelling strongly at the last, only for the earlier errors to take their toll.

Limerick Lace, another seven-year-old, had been a market springer in the week before the race and was sent off 7/1 joint-favourite but had little chance with how her race went. After making a bad mistake at the first Canal Turn, she had made up ground going okay before another significant error at the 27th, doing much better than her 10th place finish.

I HAVE to admit a bias towards underdogs in this column, but there are times when one cannot but admire the achievements of the top trainers and so it was with Willie Mullins at Aintree last week.

Five wins at Liverpool, four of them Grade 1s, the other the Grand National, make him a big player in the British trainers’ championship, and he has put himself into that position on his own terms, rarely forcing runners across the water when the races did not fit the horse.

Since the start of the British jumps season, and at the time of writing, Mullins has had just 124 runners in Britain, 19 of them winning, 12 at the top level. Yet only 11 of the 124 British outings came before Christmas (one winner: Baby Kate at the November meeting), 10 more between Christmas and Cheltenham (four winners: Capodanno, Ashroe Diamond, Lossiemouth and Fun Fun Fun).

Few runners

Things ramped up at Cheltenham itself, but Aintree was more like the rest of the season, relatively few runners apart from the big race, and not many of his A-listers. Taking HRI’s official jumps ratings, Mullins ran just three each from top 10 hurdlers and chasers at Liverpool, with some of that group - like Easy Game and Monkfish - on the downgrade.

While some of his Grade 1 winners last week had obvious form claims on recent runs like Mystical Power, others had something to prove. Impaire Et Passe had been disappointing this season, particularly at the DRF while Il Etait Temps had not looked an obvious one for a step up in trip and was coming off a poor jumping display in the Arkle.

Dancing City was the Albert Bartlett third, but he had shaped nothing like a stayer in his bumper runs, the trainer clearly spotting something that was not clear to many.

What Mullins does from here with his runners in Britain will be fascinating, particularly in the valuable races at Ayr and Sandown, but if the rest of the season is anything to go, he will be not be compromising his Punchestown team too much.

FORM students are always interested in how the Cheltenham races work out at the later spring festivals and, with Fairyhouse too close for comfort this year, it was Aintree that provided the acid test.

This year’s Arkle did not seem the strongest running beforehand but produced an impressive winner in Gaelic Warrior and, if anything, he looks better after Liverpool, the runner-up and third both winning Grade 1s at the meeting. The run of Master Chewy in the Maghull adds further ballast to the form, as he was likely to have made the frame in the Arkle but for falling two out.

The Turners form may not be as hot with the one-two well-beaten in the Manifesto, though that argument is complicated by Grey Dawning and Ginny’s Destiny having had hard races then, the distant fifth Iroko running much better behind Inothewayurthinkin in the Mildmay.

That one had at least a stone in hand in the Kim Muir and the runner-up that day, Git Maker, who was raised just 1lb despite being 18 lengths clear of the third, looks a big player in today’s Scottish National.

As to the novice hurdlers, the Supreme, another race that looked relatively weak at the time, was boosted not only by Mystical Power and Firefox fighting out the finish of the Grade 1 at Aintree but also by pulling clear of the rest, while the Gallagher form of Ballyburn received a couple of knocks but he was so far clear of the rest then that it might not mean much.