THIS IS NO COUNTRY FOR OLD HORSES

Andy Newton looks at the Haydock Trial

- Andy Newton

It’s around this time of the year that the Grand National interest starts to pick up pace, and this is backed-up with this month’s Haydock Grand National Trial – staged this year on Saturday, February 20.

Well, in truth, the trades description people could have a case against the title of this race as it’s a Grand National Trial in name, rather than actually producing the winner of the Merseyside marathon in April!

Yes, it’s run over a trip of 3m 4 ½f, this Grade Three Chase and is billed as a Grand National trial, but we are yet to see a winner land both races in the same season!

The closest we’ve come was when the mighty Red Rum took the Haydock trial in 1975 but could manage only second in the Aintree Grand National that year. Many winners don’t even make it to the big race in Liverpool.

Other notable years were in 1997, when Suny Bay won this race and went on to finish second at Aintree, while, more recently, in 2017 the David Pipe-trained Vieux Lion Rouge went on to be sixth later that season.

In 2019, we saw the Colin Tizzard yard win this prize for the first time with their ten-year-old Robinsfirth, but he didn’t even go on to run in the Grand National and the same applied to the 2020 winner – Smooth Stepper – who was also absent in the big race.

That said, even though we are still looking for the first horse to win both races, it’s still a contest that is worth looking back on in a few months when National fever grabs the nation, plus it’s also one that has some key trends that have built up over the years.