White Grand National Horses

Latenightpass has spent most of his career running in point to points and hunter chases and has had plenty of success in those spheres. The eleven-year-old gelding has finished first or second in fourteen of his nineteen point to point races. He has had three attempts at the Aintree Foxhunters and has completed on all three occasions, finishing first, second and fourth so he looks a very safe conveyance over the Grand National fences.  Trained for most of his career by Tom Ellis, Latenightpass was briefly swapped to the yard of Dan Skelton for the early part of this season where he further enhanced his Grand National claims by winning over the Cross Country course at the December Cheltenham meeting. Now back in the care of Ellis, he is finally going to step up in distance over the Aintree fences and contest the Grand National where he will be partnered by his regular pilot, amateur rider, Gina Edwards.  One possible drawback could be age. Horses aged over ten do not have a great recent record in the Grand National. Since Pineau De Re's win as an eleven-year-old in 2014, there have been sixty-nine horses aged eleven or older that have ran in the Grand National and just four have been placed. However, Latenightpass will definitely appeal to lots of Grand National backers with his extensive experience of the Grand National fences and the fact that he has won over the 3m 5f Cheltenham Cross Country course. 

Nassalam was one of the easiest winners of a National you are ever likely to see when he came home a huge thirty-four lengths in front of his nearest pursuer in the Welsh version at Chepstow this season. Conditions that day were attritional with only five of the nineteen runners completing the course. The handicapper chose to view the easy victory of Nassalam literally and his trainer Gary Moore was very unhappy about the sixteen pound rise in the weights his horse received for his victory at Chepstow.  Trainer Moore felt his horse just dealt with conditions at Chepstow better than his rivals and not that Nassalam was particularly well handicapped prior to this win. The rise in the weights meant that Moore felt he had no option but to push his horse up to Grade One level and try his luck in the Gold Cup. That experiment did not go well as Nassalam was one of the first horses beaten and was pulled up before the fourth last fence. Horses that have done well in other Nationals often perform above general expectations at Aintree but the handicapper has definitely given Nassalam a very stiff task this year. What might be in his favour is the ground. With the going likely to be very soft or heavy at Aintree, that might give him a chance despite his big rise in the weights. Nassalam has raced on heavy ground four times and returned figures of: 1411. The seven-year-old gelding also has experience of the Grand National fences having finished fourth to Gesskile in the 2m 5f Grand Sefton in November.  There are plenty of positives about Nassalam's chance but the main sticking point is that he now looks so badly handicapped, especially as his regular pilot Caolin Quinn cannot claim his usual three pound allowance in this race.