‘A part-timer beating the full-time pros – people love that’
@jen_donald
Randox Grand National Festival, Aintree Racecourse, Merseyside
THE Randox Grand National course might have been toned down in the past 10 years with the jolly green giants not so ferocious, but the race’s capacity to produce a great sporting story remains wonderfully intact as Sam Waley-Cohen’s triumph in his last-ever ride on the seven-year-old novice, Noble Yeats, proved.
Some aficionados might dismiss it as “just a long-distance handicap chase” now, but why do professional tipsters still pick horses that have the best back-stories? Why was Snow Leopardess, the grey mare who had already had a foal, trading as ante-post favourite on Friday?
Because Aintree is a place where romance still trumps form.
Noble Yeats was dismissed, I think, because no seven-year-old had won since Bogskar in 1940
