Nick Rockett and Paul Townend© Photo Healy Racing
Novice chaser Nick Rockett is likely to head trainer Willie Mullins' Boylesports Irish Grand National challenge at Fairyhouse on Easter Monday, with the weights for the €500,000 race being released today.
Sponsors Boylesports currently have Nick Rockett the 8/1 co-favourite of three - along with the Gavin Cromwell-trained Perceval Legallois and recent Cheltenham winner Corbetts Cross, for the 3m5f race on April 1.
Galway Plate winner Ash Tree Meadow - successful in Navan's recent Webster Cup, heads the entries at 11st12lb with Mullins holding strong hopes for unexposed novice Nick Rockett - set to carry 10st13lb, which has raced just three times over fences.
Four of the 146-rated seven-year-old's previous runs have been at Fairyhouse, including winning a Grade 2 novice hurdle last Easter and his beginners chase at the course on New Year's Day and Mullins reports “Nick Rockett has performed well around Fairyhouse and I love 'horses-for-courses'.
“Paul (Townend) was very happy the last day he won around the course and we thought instead of going to Cheltenham that we should aim for Fairyhouse. That's what we have been doing and we are very happy with how he is.”
Nick Rockett also holds an entry for the Grade 1 Willowwarm Gold Cup but Mullins adds “he jumps around Fairyhouse so well, has won over the track, is a novice coming up the ranks, has a nice weight and Paul is very happy to ride him (in the Grand National). That is more than enough and I think he ticks all the right boxes.
“We have to get him there in the right order and at the moment I am very happy with him.”
Mullins intends running four horses in the National and says “Bronn was disappointing Naas but if I could get him back right he could go there. Minella Cocooner has run well there, has the credentials, stays all day and has a nice weight as well.
“Ontheropes is 36 (on the ballot) but I think he is more or less in and is our other likely runner.”
Regarding his initial success in the famous race in 2019, Mullins added “it took us a long time to win it and winning it gave me as much pleasure as any race.
“My father had won it four times so it was an itch that needed scratching and then winning it with Burrows Saint for Rich Ricci and with Ruby Walsh that capped it.”
Handicapper Sandy Shaw added that the prospect of unexposed Nick Rockett running in the race has left him “shaking in his boots”, adding “an awful lot of horses handicap themselves and it is obviously the novices that we look to as they are the ones that have more improvement in them.
“The three Cheltenham winners are in but we can reassess them, the difference is that Willie’s Nick Rockett didn’t go so he has me shaking in my boots the way he’s talking!
“He’s been held back and it was certainly the right thing to do, I think. Novices are always hard to rate because you have to rate them on what they have done, not on what we think they might do so there is a chance Nick Rockett could be well handicapped.
“The only thing is he has only run seven times in his life. He’s unexposed as a result, but it will be a question of if he can handle the hurly burly of the race. Other than that he does look the one. He could have a few pounds up his sleeve, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
