Racing: National runners shrink in rain

Grand National Meeting: Big-race field dwindles to 32 but the course claims only two fallers in Fox Hunters' Chase

THEY WILL count out one of the smallest fields of the modern era for the Grand National tomorrow and the evidence from Liverpool yesterday is that a great many of them will be counted back in again.

For those who have drawn Belmont King, Linden's Lotto, Betty's Boy or Another Excuse in early office sweeps, a wager will now have to be struck to maintain interest in the race.

Their removal yesterday means that just 32 are left for the big one and Avro Anson remains a doubt with the ground riding on the pliable side. The going is still officially good to soft (soft in places) following yesterday's morning of drizzle on Merseyside which deposited two millimetres of rain.

The field is still almost certain to be larger than three years ago, when Rough Quest beat 26 rivals, the least populated contest since Merryman II led home 25 opponents in 1960.

Rough Quest himself was an unexpected casualty yesterday in the Fox Hunters' Chase, the opening salvo over the frightening fences. His rider, Mark Bradburne, broke a collar-bone and thus misses his National debut on the 50-1 Blue Charm.

Rough Quest was one of only two horses to fall in a race which usually represents the Balaclava of the meeting. Neither he nor Pontoon Bridge was hurt. The notable complaints are confined to jockeys.

Graham Bradley, who sprang a joint between his collar-bone and shoulder when falling in the Irish National on Monday, is receiving regular treatment in an effort to make his appointment with Suny Bay, on whom he was runner- up last year. "I am having physio twice a day and have been doing some press-ups and lifting exercises," he said. "The shoulder is a lot better and getting stronger by the hour."

Richard Dunwoody, who has the seat on second favourite Call It A Day, missed his last two rides yesterday with dehydration. That is a sensation he would rather feel on Sunday as a result of celebration.

Dunwoody will have been made even more deeply ill by his defection from Papo Kharisma, who won the closing contest for Adrian Maguire. There was something unusually extravagant about the way Maguire celebrated Macgeorge's victory earlier in the day and it was all to do with the animals that followed in his slipstream.

The Irishman knows Escartefigue and Go Ballistic well as they are housed at the David Nicholson premises where Maguire used to be stable jockey. Maguire's key to Jackdaw's Castle was taken from him at the beginning of the year in an unsavoury demotion and he rather enjoys restating that his talent is not quite as diluted as some seem to believe.

"This is a good result for me and Richard Lee [the winning trainer]," he said, leaving others to fill in for whom it was bad. "I recognised the horse and the colours when Escartefigue came at me, so I had to keep Macgeorge up to his work."

Lee added: "Adrian rides the horse quite beautifully. I have always thought he is a brilliant horseman and excellent tactician."

JP McManus's strategy at the racecourse is usually confined to the betting ring, and some satchels were filling with tears after he landed a double with Joe Mac and Elegant Lord.

If Joe Mac had not run at Cheltenham he would now be heralded as the best young hurdler in training following his contemptuous victory in the opener. Christy Roche's gelding, who had been well beaten by Hors La Loi III (another winner yesterday and now an 8-1 chance for next year's Champion Hurdle with William Hill) at the Festival, won by four lengths, but could have won by a similar number of minutes. "The ground was perfect for him and he was always going very well," Conor O'Dwyer, the winning jockey, reported. "He has a lot of speed and once we came there at the last it was all over in three or four strides."

O'Dwyer added that Joe Mac enjoyed the flatter configuration of this course. McManus enjoyed his observation. "Jockeys always say that when they have won that the track suits the horse well," he said,"but he did seem happier here than at Cheltenham.

"I have got to admit I got my fingers burnt when he was beaten at Cheltenham, but at least I got a little back today." McManus's little is everyone else's lot.

The owner-gambler also had a minor flutter on Elegant Lord - "a little to cover the beer money". That means he probably bought out the local Cains brewery.