Who are the only current trainers to have won the Grand National more than once?

The record for training the most Grand National winners is held, jointly, by George Dockeray, Fred Rimell and Donald ‘Ginger’ McCain, who all saddled four winners apiece. Of course, all three of them are deceased and, of current, active trainers, just two have saddled more than one Grand National winner.

The first of them was Nigel Twiston-Davies who, in 1998, saddled the Welsh Grand National winner Earth Summit to victory at Aintree and, four years later, repeated the feat with Bindaree. Indeed, his second victory in the Grand National renewed his zest for National Hunt racing at a time when he was winding down his training career. After a poor season, in which he would eventually saddle just 35 winners – his lowest seasonal total for a decade – Twiston-Davies was adamant he was retiring. Even the day after Bindaree won the National, he said, ‘I never ever wanted to be a trainer. That happened by accident. So I wouldn’t be giving up a career I always wanted to do.’ However, by his own admission, ‘…Bindaree changed everything.’

The second current trainer who has won the Grand National more than once is Gordon Elliott, who has recently returned from a six-month ban for bringing the sport of horse racing into disrepute. Elliott’s faux pas has been well chronicled elsewhere, but he became the youngest ever trainer of a National winner when saddling Silver Birch to victory in 2007 and added wins two and three with back-to-back victories for Tiger Roll in 2018 and 2019.

Does Aidan Coleman have a retainer with J.P. McManus?

The short answer is no, he doesn’t. Following the shock retirement of Barry Geraghty – who had replaced A.P. McCoy as retained rider to J.P. McManus in Britain in 2015 – in July, 2020, Aidan Coleman was short-priced favourite to replace him. However, concerns were voiced, at the time, that Coleman might not represent the type of unrivalled appointment that McManus had favoured in the past. Even Coleman, himself, was keen to play down speculation linking him to the role. He said, ‘I’m very fortunate that I ride for a lot of people, I’m very busy and I ride a lot of nice horses. I’m just concentrating on myself and what will be, will be after that.’

Coleman was one of several jockeys – the others being Richie McLernon, Jonjo O’Neill Jnr. and Richard Johnson – frequently used by McManus in Geraghty’s enforced absence, due to a succession of injuries, in recent seasons. That said, aside from Geraghty and McLernon, no jockey has ridden more winners in McManus’ famous green and gold hooped silks during the last five seasons. The situation became a little clearer in November, 2020, when, while discussing riding plans for the Champion Hurdle winner Epatante, trainer Nicky Henderson said, ‘J.P. [McManus] has got a lot of horses and Aidan is going to be riding a few of them. There’s no retained jockey in this country.’ In the 2021/22 National Hunt season, so far, Coleman has ridden 17 winners, four of which have been for McManus.

 

Who founded Aintree?

Of course, nowadays, Aintree Racecourse is synonymous with the most famous steeplechase in the world, the Grand National. However, the race that became the Grand National, the ‘Grand Liverpool Steeplechase’, was not run for the first time until February, 1836, nearly seven years after Aintree staged its inaugural Flat meeting in July, 1829.

Horse racing at Aintree was the brainchild of local hotelier and sports promoter, William Lynn who, in 1829, approached William Molyneux, Second Earl of Sefton with a view to leasing the land on which the racecourse now stands. Molyneux sanctioned the use of his land for horse racing and, following the construction of a grandstand, the first race, the Croxteth Stakes, was run on July 7 the same year.

The venture proved highly successful and supported, financially, by Molyneux, the Jockey Club and others, Aintree Racecourse flourished. National Hunt racing was introduced in 1835 – although the National Hunt Committee would not be formed until three decades later – and the following year, drawing inspiration from an existing race, the Great St. Albans Steeplechase, Lynn staged his own version. The Grand Liverpool Steeplechase was still known by its original title until 1947, when it was renamed the Grand National, but the word ‘national’ was first used in connection with the 1839 renewal, which is now generally considered the first ‘official’ running of the Grand National.

How Can I Win One Million Pounds by Betting One Pound?

Did you know that just about 50% of the UK population gamble?

That’s lots of winners and losers.

But how do you win a million pounds with one pound? It sounds a challenge if not an impossibility. With the Lotto charging £2 a ticket, you’d need to share the top prize with a friend to even have any chance of winning big.

When it come to betting on horse racing the most likely chance of winning one million pounds for a solitary pound coin is with an accumulator. This bet puts all of your winnings on the next horse. So if you have a 10/1 winner, you’d have £11 going onto the next horse (that’s £10 winnings and your stake money of £1).

So if you had three 10/1 winners what would that win for your quid?

 

That would be £1210.

Not quite the million hey? The good thing about a win accumulator is that you can make as many selections as you wish. And each win means you have more and more money to put into your pocket.

The difficult part is finding all these winners.

In theory, the shorter the price of the horse you pick the better chance it has of winning. So you might be wise to consider how many favourites you would need to win consecutively to get to that million pounds.

This may seem a possibility although in practice it is probably impossible. If you bet your £1 on 21 horses priced even money you would be a millionaire.

This is how it works: £1, £2, £4, £8, £16, £32, £64, £128, £256, £512, £1024, £2048, £4096, £8192, £16384, £32768, £65536, £131072, £262144, £524288, £1048576

(I’ve just won a million pounds!)

Easy!

If you started with £128 you could bring that down to 13 winners.

If you started with £1024 you would need just 10 winners to become a millionaire.

Place your bets, please.

 

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