Aintree Grand National meeting: first day

there are 5 meetings today, but only one of them really counts- Aintree, where it is the first day of the Grand National meeting. In terms of quality this meeting now equals the Cheltenham Festival and numerous winners and also-rans from the Cotswolds are running again here. The very first race, the Grade One Liverpool Hurdle over 3 miles, at 15.00 CET, is one of the highlights of the week, starring Big Bucks (Paul Nicholls/ Ruby Walsh), who is going for an unprecedented 17th successive win. He has won the World Hurdle at Cheltenham for the past 4 years and is now going for his 4th win here, and in theory at least he looks a certainty, having already beaten most of these opponents. On official ratings, he has 13 lbs in hand and it will be the shock of the meeting if he fails today. Nicholls saddles two more runners, Poungach (Daryl Jacob) and Tidal Bay (Nick Scholfield), and they could both run into the money, but Smad Place (Alan King/ Robert Thornton), third at Cheltenham, looks the most likely candidate for second place.

The 4yo hurdle half an hour later features several of the principals from the Triumph Hurdle, including the 33-1 winner Countrywide Flame (Jihn Quinn/ Dougie Costello), as well as Grumeti (King/ Thornton), Dodging Bullets (Nicholls/ Jacob) and Sadlers Risk (Philip Hobbs/ Richard Johnson), who finished 3rd, 4th and 6th, while Pearl Swan (Nicholls/ Walsh) well at the last and was not far away at the time. In theory Countrywide Flame should score again, but we are dubious about the Triumph form and expect Grumeti, Dodging Bullets and Pearl Swan all to reverse the placings, while German-bred Lyvius (Nicky Henderson/ Barry Geraghty), a winner at Hamburg and Baden-Baden in 2011, is a newcomer to this grade who could well run a big race.

The Betfred Bowl over 3 miles 1 furlong at 16.05 is another race with an excellent field, including several who ran in the Gold Cup, where Burton Port (Henderson/ Tony McCoy) ran on into fourth, Carruthers was beaten out of sight, Diamond Harry was pulled up and What a Friend (Nicholls/ Walsh) fell early on. Of this quartet we definitely prefer What a Friend, who is owned by Sir Alex Ferguson and won this race in 2010. Nacarat (Tom George/ Paddy Brennan) won last year, but this renewal looks much stronger. Riverside Theatre (Henderson/ Geraghty) is the likely favourite after winning the Ryanair Chase, where Medermit was a close third, but neither is proven at this distance. Hunt Ball (Kieran Burke/ Scholfield) would be a very popular winner for small connections after winning 7 of his last 8 races and going up an incredible 86 lbs in the ratings, but we are sceptical. Plenty of questions will be answered here, but What a Friend look the most reliable choice.

The fourth Grade One race is the novice chase at 17.50, which has the weakest field of the day. Al Ferof (Nicholls/ Walsh) was below form at Cheltenham, and finished behind Menorah (Hobbs/ Johnson), but we expect him to score here, possibly at the main expense of the mare Pepite Rose (Venetia Williams/ Aidan Coleman).