Bradstock hoping for soft ground National
Sara Bradstock has admitted it will “break my heart” if this year’s Randox Grand National is run on soft ground only for her stable star Mr Vango to miss out.
Her gelding has won both his starts this season - the Betfair Exchange London National Handicap at Sandown Park and the Sky Bet Peter Marsh Handicap Chase at Haydock Park - having also won the My Pension Expert Devon National at Exeter by 60 lengths last February.
However, the handicapper has allocated the nine-year-old a rating of 143 and a weight of 10st 2lb, making an appearance at Aintree on Saturday 5th April unlikely.
Speaking after discovering the news, Sara said: “I’m just disappointed to win two big handicaps and go up very, very little - but there you go, such is life.
“I’m just going to have to just pray aren’t I that we get a deluge to suit us and no one else will want to run? That’s my only chance - I need Storm Freddie to come!
“We’ve won the Devon National by 60 lengths, we’ve won the London National and we’ve won the Peter Marsh and we’re nowhere near. I was sort of hoping when I read the guide to National handicapping that recent form was taken into consideration but they don’t any longer change any handicap marks do they?
“It will break my heart if we get some soft ground and we can’t run because he could win a National on soft ground. That was why I was so keen. It does look like there’s possibly rain this Spring, but we’re not going to get in are we?
“It would be wonderful because if he got some really soft ground he is a real Grand National type. Stamina is his thing. He jumps beautifully and not too exuberantly. It would be wonderful if the miracle happened but I think it’s looking unlikely.”
Sara trains out of the yard in Letcombe Bassett in Oxfordshire, where Captain Tim Forster sent out three Grand National winners and her own husband Mark trained Coneygree to win the 2015 Cheltenham Gold Cup, before his death aged 66 last year.
Mark had two runners in the Grand National during his training career - Do Rightly who fell at the fourth in 1998 and Step Back who pulled up at the 25th fence in 2019.
Speaking about what it would mean to have a runner in the race little more than a year after her husband’s death, Sara said: “It would be very poignant.
“He (Mr Vango) was the last winner Mark had in his name. Mark was very ill by then but he was very cheered by that. He was desperate that we should go on and he felt that we had something else that could carry the flag, so it was lovely. He really enjoyed that last win.
“He’s very lightly raced so there’s always a chance. I truly believe he’s a real National horse but we’ve got to get there first to win it!”