The weather is going to have a big bearing on the result of the BoyleSports Irish Grand National on Easter Monday. There is plenty of rain forecast between now and the off, and if that prediction is correct, the ground is going to be “soft”, or even “heavy”, by the off.
I am loathe to desert Haiti Couleurs after he did this column a favour winning at the Cheltenham Festival: put up at 8-1, Rebecca Curtis’s game gelding won the Princess Royal National Hunt Challenge Cup Novices’ Handicap Chase at 7-2 by a comfortable four and a half lengths.
Haiti Couleurs is a magnificent, precise jumper and seems to go on all ground conditions but he must race off a 6 lbs higher official mark at Fairyhouse on Monday (5 p.m.). So my marginal preference is for NOW IS THE HOUR who found the Cheltenham ground much faster than ideal last month but who would still almost certainly have finished in the first two had he not fallen two out when just two lengths off Haiti Couleurs in the novices’ handicap chase.
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