Racing: Golden opportunity for Chives

The Grand National: Knight, the heroine of Cheltenham, lines up an historic double

One of the regular pieces of propaganda issued on behalf of jump racing by those who prefer it to the business on the Flat is that it is the province of ordinary folk. One glance at the status of the owners of some of the leading Grand National contenders should be enough to blow that notion out of the water.

Property developer Sir Robert Ogden (Ad Hoc, Kingsmark and Fadalko) is worth an estimated £120m. The food-processing business of Graham Roach (Shotgun Willy) turns over some £400m a year. Trevor Hemmings (Chives, Goguenard and Southern Star) has a finger in so many pies that he appears on rich lists in the £500m bracket. Former bookmaker J P McManus (Youlneverwalkalone) lives as a tax exile in Switzerland; David Johnson (Iris Bleu and Cyfor Malta) accrued his wealth from a finance company. These are not people you will meet ferreting through the dented-tins basket in the supermarket.

It takes a healthy bank balance to own racehorses on a grand scale under either code but, unlike on the Flat, where there is the prospect of future stud earnings, chasing and hurdling is a non-profit-making pastime in which the protagonists can truly relate to the old saw that the only way to make a small fortune from racing is to start with a large one. And maybe that is the difference; jumping fans do it not for profit, but for kicks.

As far as the Channel Islands-based Hemmings, who began his working life as an apprentice bricklayer, is concerned, quite a few of those have been in the teeth. His were Young Kenny, killed at Haydock two years ago when a leading National fancy; The Last Fling, who broke his neck at the Canal Turn last year; and the record-priced 100,000 guineas purchase Inca, who broke a leg on the gallops after running second in the Cheltenham bumper.

Hemmings, who was born in Lancashire has some 40 horses in training. It has long been an ambition to emulate one of his business mentors, Fred Pontin, the holiday-camp magnate who owned the 1971 hero Specify, by winning a National. He launched a three-pronged attack last year but with no luck; for as well as The Last Fling's fate, Goguenard fell at the first and the fourth favourite, Beau, purchased days before the race, stumbled on landing at the 14th and unshipped his jockey.

This year could well be payback time, with Chives and Goguenard his chief contenders. The imposing Chives, bought as an unbroken four-year-old and trained by Henrietta Knight, has progressed up the ranks in copybook fashion, and that his third behind Hussard Collonges in last year's Royal & Sun-Alliance Chase at Cheltenham was enough to put him among the best of the new generation of staying chasers has been confirmed this season.

Although the eight-year-old has not won, his second places behind course special-ist Kingsmark at Haydock, in the Welsh Grand National under top-weight, and splitting subsequent Gold Cup fourth and second Valley Henry and Truckers Tavern at Newbury were full of merit, as was his bold run in the Gold Cup, when, jumping quite superbly, he was one of the few who tried to take the race to his stablemate Best Mate.

One of Graham Roach's ploys is to buy horses as foals and then look at them again four years later. Shotgun Willy is one such, bought for Ir£9,000 as a seven-month-old. He has an odd, high-snapping hind-leg action at the walk but it has not prevented him galloping and jumping. At Haydock at the start of this month, on his first outing since a close second in the Scottish National last April, he produced a remarkable performance to catch the Martin Pipe pair You're Agoodun and Iris Bleu in a blanket finish.

Many a top-class rider retires without having won a National – Peter Scudamore and John Francome, to name but two – but that will not be acceptable to Tony McCoy. He will have the choice of the Pipe legions, including Blowing Wind, third in the past two years, McCoy's only two completions. The trainer's total of 59 National runners to date has yielded Blowing Wind's two thirds, Encore Un Peu's second in 1996 and Miinnehoma's victory in 1994.

The pick this time may be Johnson's handsome Cyfor Malta, who caused a sensation five years ago when treating the big fences with utter contempt in the John Hughes at the age of just five. Physical problems have restricted his racing since, but he showed some of his old fire when winning the Thomas Pink Gold Cup in November. He was going well when unseating McCoy in the Pillar Chase won by Behrajan in January, and missed the Gold Cup to come to Aintree fresh.

The Martell Cognac-sponsored 30-fence four-and-a-half miler is the world's richest steeplechase, with a guaranteed purse of £600,000, and that and the modification of the fences have improved the quality of runners. During the Eighties, nine horses who had taken part in the Gold Cup went on to contest the National, of whom Grittar and Rhyme 'N' Reason won.

Since 1990, no fewer than 35 Gold Cup participants have turned up at Aintree, though, again, just the two followed up with a National win, Miinnehoma and Rough Quest. Behrajan, fifth in the Gold Cup, is the class act on Saturday, though the last top-weight to win the National was the incomparable Red Rum.

What the ground will be like is the great imponderable, but if it remains no faster than good Chives, whom the authorities have given Richard Guest (winner on Red Marauder two years ago) special dispensation to ride against horses he trains, can enable Knight to become the first trainer since Fred Rimell with Royal Frolic and Rag Trade in 1976 to send out the Gold Cup and National winners in the same year.

The alternatives are Shotgun Willy, Behrajan and Cyfor Malta, with Wonder Weasel the best long-shot.

Montgomery's tips

1 Chives
2 Shotgun Willy
3 Behrajan
4 Cyfor Malta

Long shot: Wonder Weasel