Irish Grand National 2023 tips: Best bet, odds, runners and riders for the big race at Fairyhouse

iNews

09 April 2023

Irish Grand National 2023 tips: Best bet, odds, runners and riders for the big race at Fairyhouse

The Irish Grand National is a moveable feast, staged whenever Easter Monday falls, but, like the Aintree original, this year run five days later, it delivers the thrills every single time.

And, like our own National, finding the winner can sometimes be difficult bordering on impossible.

Two years ago, for instance, Freewheelin Dylan became, at 150-1, the biggest priced winner of the iconic Fairyhouse contest since its inception in 1870.

His local trainer, Dermot McLoughlin, a name unfamiliar to most this side of the Irish Sea, then did it again last year, this time with 40-1 outsider Lord Lariat, who was very much fancied to complete a remarkable stable treble on Monday afternoon until withdrawn at the weekend with a cruelly-timed leg injury.

But with practically every one of the 30 chasers – slogging it out over 22 fences and three and a half miles plus – capable of getting in on the final act on a going day, we cannot rule out another turn-up.

Two outsiders lurking at the bottom of the handicap potentially fit the bill.

Gevrey (25-1) has had his problems, but displayed distinct signs of a revival when a strong-finishing fourth in a Cheltenham Festival handicap.

His trainer Gordon Elliott has something of an obsession about winning Ireland’s most famous race, evidenced by Monday’s eight runners, but General Principle’s last-gasp victory in 2018 is the only time he has managed it so far.

That matches the record of Thomas Gibney, who won the race 11 years ago with Lion Na Bernai and who now runs Must Be Obeyed (28-1), who has shown enough on just five runs over fences to suggest he might play a big part in proceedings.

Favourites do occasionally come good and, of those at the front end of the market. Thedevilscoachman, three out of four over fences this season, is the most popular with punters.

But Stumptown perhaps has the stronger credentials.

Irish Grand National 2023 tips
Stumptown: Just touched off at Cheltenham; has a great chance at the weights of going one better.

Gavin Cromwell’s six-year-old was one of the best backed Irish horses in Cheltenham week and only just lost out to Angels Dawn in a pulsating finish to the Kim Muir Chase, the pair clear of the rest.

Stumptown, another carrying the minimum 10st at the foot of the handicap – indeed he only just made the cut – is now considerably better off at the weights with Angels Dawn and if he isn’t feeling the effects of those Festival exertions, could take all the beating.

Sadly, the British jumps racing community have virtually given up on the Irish Grand National (in stark contrast to Ireland’s greedy designs on ours).

Venetia Williams’ Cheltenham Gold Cup sixth Royal Pagaille is the sole UK raider and he’s conceding between 9lb and 26lb to some tough domestic customers.

Desert Orchid managed to defy top weight back in 1990, but admirable though Royal Pagaille is, he’s no Dessie.

Willie Mullins is another heavyweight with just one Irish National to his name (Burrows Saint, 2019), but he’s having a good shot at it here with I Am Maximus, Tenzing and Dolcita.

Tenzing might prove best of that trio, but however they fare, Mullins isn’t going to leave Fairyhouse empty-handed if Sunday’s astonishing achievements are any guide.

Three wins at Cork and five in a row at Fairyhouse added up to a 113,999-1 eight-timer for the perennial Irish champion trainer.

The Fairyhouse haul included both Grade Ones, courtesy of Ashroe Diamond in the Honeysuckle Hurdle and Flame Bearer in the WillowWarm Gold Cup Chase, a race marred by the fatal fall of Elliott’s star novice Mighty Potter.