High profile horses absent from National five-day declarations
The five-day declaration stage for Saturday's John Smith's Grand National has revealed a total of eight horses who will not go forward to the final declarations, amongst them Jonjo O'Neill's Synchronised and the Barry Potts-trained Notre Pere, both former Welsh Grand National winners, withdrawn from the contest on account of the anticipated decent ground, writes Elliot Slater.
O'Neill had given the impression in recent days that he would run Synchronised even if the ground was 'good', but having given the matter some consideration and consulted with his owner JP McManus, it has been decided to wait for easier ground with the Irish Grand National a possibility. Notre Pere, another former Welsh Grand National winner, is also a noted mudlark and the Irish horse was always going to be a doubt if the weather remained fair. He may also run at Fairyhouse in the Irish equivalent later in the month. Those who were thinking about placing a Grand National bet on him should bear this in mind.
The others to be absent from the list of horses going forward to the final declarations on Friday are Cheltenham specialist Midnight Chase, the Willie Mullins-trained pair of Scotsirish and Ballytrim, Nedzer's Return, Frankie Figg, and the ill-fated One Cool Cookie, who tragically broke a leg and had to be destroyed after a routine training gallop under Charlie Swann late last week.
The withdrawals from the race have had little immediate impact on the ante-post market for the big race with the majority of the absentees having been anticipated to a greater or lesser degree. The Midnight Club remains a clear favourite but has eased out from a general 8/1 at the weekend to 9/1 in places, What A Friend is on offer with the majority of firms at 11/1, Backstage has been well backed into 12/1, whilst there are bits and pieces of 14/1 available about Sam Waley-Cohen's mount Oscar Time. They go 16/1 and bigger the rest.
