Racetrack Wiseguy Grand National Verdict and other stories

 Until 2008 I was very much the man to ask for Grand National advice, backing the winner - and even the first two a couple of times onve every three years on average. In eleven races since then the finish has not been of much interest to me. So, maybe it's time to get back on track. 

We landed the Cheltenham nap and have been doing well since so Aintree is our last big jamboree of top class jumping in the UK before one tries one's best to be low profile before the less compelling conundrums of the flat.

Of course Cloth Cap is officially a stone well in and his third in the Scottish National two years ago suggests that he has the stamina required. I did rather throw away the winner two years ago by telling anyone who'd listen that Tiger Roll would win but most people want more than 4/1 about anything in the National. We are in the same situation again this year. Once it's won, 4/1 will look fine but the 14/1 that was chalked up when the weights were first published was the time to get on.

One scans the list and can see plenty to leave out of calculations and one appreciates the reasons for the top six in the betting being there, most notably perhaps Burrows Saint, who has the great advantages of being trained in Ireland, having run over nearly this distance in the past while not being disgraced over shorter and Greatest Tipster, Kevin Blake, puts in a good word for him, and Kimberlite Candy who has jumped round these fences twice, is trained by a trainer we like (Tom Lacey) and again, should be found wanting in the longest race of the season when sound jumping and staying the distance are the two most important considerations.

One doesn't pass over Lake View Lad as quickly as some of the others at 33/1 but Secret Reprieve needs only three more entries to drop out to be in on 10 stone 1. 5/2 looked like very cramped odds for the delayed Welsh National until he made it look a formality and at 14/1, I'm just on my way to have a couple of quid because that looks fair enough.

I'm putting it in combinations with a variety of stories that came out of Cheltenham - Chantry House, that may or may not have benefitted from the early fall of Envoi Allen, Thyme Hill who had a setback and didn't run but I hoped would beat Paisley Park and might well have and Bravemansgame who had nothing to be ashamed of in third behind one of the Irish good things. If you get a 14/1 winner in among a few like them, loose change you wouldn't notice can pay for a roister you'll never forget.

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Tuesday's tremendous meteorological record was only slightly marred by snow in April on today's walk. Some might have called it sleet. Unlike the inuit, we only have two words for it but I think it might have been snow for a minute or two. Not walking into it but with it coming from behind on the return leg, it was a hardship-less way of adding that experience to the rich texture of the intimate knowledge we are building up of local micro-climates.

One comes home to find, gratefully, that the new Murakami book wasn't too big to get through the letter box and so that is likely to be the subject of the next thoughts here. I filled in the meantime since the tremendous Hardy stories with Charlotte Mew, who I have more time for as a result, in preparation for the biography due here soon. I won't pre-empt that now except to say I think I've seen the light or, more properly with her, the encroaching gloom.