Grand National Friday Tips – Irish NH Tips

This big imposing son of Kayf Tara is a Grade 1 winner already this season at Leopardstown over Christmas and was a good third in the Supreme at the Cheltenham Festival. He’s a clear form choice in this race in what doesn’t look a particularly strong field. He probably did plenty early in the Supreme and was probably valued for finishing closer than winning distances suggest.

I find it very hard to knock him and think he will be very hard to beat at a meeting that Gordon Elliott traditionally does well at. He rates a strong bet.

Now, plenty will knock this selection but in my opinion there’s plenty of method to my madness. We know on his day El Fabiolo is a better horse than Jonbon but El Fabiolo has had plenty of jumping issues in the last 12 months or so. While the ground isn’t exactly what El Fabiolo would want I think he will be fine on it over this trip. Jonbon is a horse that needs everything his own way and there’s plenty of pace in this race. Not only that but his weaknesses were exposed at Cheltenham when he couldn’t get to the lead. Matata and Protektorat are both horses who like to go forward and I don’t foresee a situation where Jonbon gets the easy lead he craves.

While this pace war goes on, Paul Townend and El Fabiolo will be sitting quietly in behind just tracking the pace and biding their time to make one challenge in the home straight. I can easily see him coming there travelling and picking off his rivals who have softened each other up. I think he’s very much worth chancing here in a race that looks like it could fall in his lap if he jumps around.

This horse comes here on the back of a win at Newbury last time and he’s stepping up in class. He is a horse who’s only had eight hurdles starts up to now and there should still be plenty of improvement left in him. He only got 4lbs off the handicapper for his win at Newbury and I don’t think he was doing a whole pile in front that day, I think they could have gone around again, and he would always have held his rivals at bay.

Patrick Wadge is a very interesting jockey booking for this yard as clearly, they feel that an experienced hand is the best way to go here. His main danger may well be the Tony Martin trained Hamsiyann who has a nice racing weight and has a pot like this in him, but the selection is just incredibly hard to knock out of the frame and should run his race.

*Information correct at time of writing. 18+ only. GambleAware.