Irish Bred Horses To Dominate At Aintree

Irish trained horses have been hitting the headlines at the Cheltenham Festival in recent years with 19 and 17 of the 28 races going the way of Irish trained runners in the last two years alone.

This trend has not been replicated at Aintree where there was no Irish trained winner over the three days last year. In fact the Grand National itself has seen only one Irish trained winner, Rule The World (2016), in the last ten years.

Last season's blank by Irish-trained runners at Aintree may have had much to do with Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins aiming their best horses at the Punchestown Festival prize money as they slugged it out for the Irish Trainers' Championship but nonetheless the Irish continued to dominate the breeding-stakes at Aintree with over half the runners carrying the (IRE) suffix.

Remarkably, Rule The World is the only British-bred winner of the big race in the last 16 years — over that period the Grand National winners were: 1 (GB), 3 (FR) and 12 (IRE).

Below is an interactive graph showing the country of origin of all the runners and winners at the Aintree Festival since 1990.

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