[Sport] Tiger Roll's Grand National weight likely to infuriate owner Michael O'Leary.

[S9OUL.]

Tiger Roll, the Grand National winner in 2018 and 2019, will need to carry 11st 9lb to victory at Aintree on 10 April to become only the second horse after Red Rum to win the world’s most famous steeplechase three times. Since his weight represents a rating of 166, however, the repeated insistence of his owner, Michael O’Leary, that Tiger Roll would not line up with a mark “in the 160s” may be a more immediate obstacle to the 11-year-old than any of Liverpool’s famous fences.

Tiger Roll has not added another success to his record in four attempts since becoming the first horse since Red Rum in 1974 to win a second Grand National. He was denied an attempt to complete an unprecedented third consecutive success by the Covid lockdown in April 2020 and was pulled up in a cross-country handicap at Cheltenham in November, when he was racing off a mark of 171.

By that measure, Martin Greenwood, the BHA’s senior chase handicapper, has given Tiger Roll a little slack in the latest set of National weights, not least as his most recent official mark was 168 and he is such an exceptional performer around Aintree. But it is nowhere near the weight that O’Leary, a man who is hardly famous for backing away from an opinion, was apparently hoping to see.

O’Leary recently suggested that Greenwood has “unfairly weighted Tiger Roll for the last two years in the UK”, following National victories off marks of 150, in 2018, and 159 two years later, adding that “if the handicapper rates him fairly somewhere in the 150s, he’ll run, but if he rates him in the 160s or 170s, he won’t.”

Despite the uncertainty over his participation, Tiger Roll is, inevitably, towards the top of the early betting on the Grand National after the publication of the allotted weights for the 105 entries on Tuesday morning. Gordon Elliott’s chaser, who was the 4-1 favourite for his second National success, is around 16-1 to win, with Cloth Cap, the Ladbrokes Trophy winner in November, and Kimberlite Candy, twice a runner-up in a race over the National fences in November, also on offer at similar odds.

Tiger Roll could have his next run in the Boyne Hurdle at Navan on Sunday, in preparation for the Cross Country Chase at Cheltenham’s Festival meeting on 17 March. He won the Cross Country prior to his two National victories but was beaten 17 lengths into second place by Easysland in 2020.

“You are always hoping you are going to be a couple of pounds less than what you have been given,” Elliott said after learning of Tiger Roll’s weight, “but to be honest, we will just smile and take it.

“He made a mistake the last day at Cheltenham and he was lame after the race but thankfully he is okay now. We will just keep our heads up and hopefully he will be okay for the rest of the season.

“He is in the Boyne Hurdle at the weekend but the ground is very soft so we might not run him. He is in good form and if the ground is right for him we would like to run him as it’s a race he has won before.

“I have to concentrate on training the horse and I just hope his owner lets the horse run in the race for the public. Everyone will be looking forward to seeing the horse run again in the Grand National but Michael will make that decision.”

Bristol De Mai, who has won five Grade Ones in his career to date including the Betfair Chase in November, is one of three horses at the top of the Grand National weights with 11st 10lb (a rating of 167), alongside Santini, the runner-up in last season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, and Easysland.

Other leading contenders are likely to include Burrows Saint (10st 13lb), who was just six when he ran out an impressive winner of the Irish Grand National in April 2019, and Magic Of Light (10st 13lb), who was less than three lengths behind Tiger Roll in second in 2019 and is 2lb better off in the latest handicap.