{"id":389753,"date":"2026-04-09T11:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389753\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:39:08","slug":"grand-national-2026-nick-rockett-withdrawn-from-aintree-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389753\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand National 2026: Nick Rockett withdrawn from Aintree race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year’s winner Nick Rockett has been withdrawn from this weekend’s Grand National at Aintree.<\/p>\n

Nick Rockett – trained by Willie Mullins and ridden by his son Patrick – finished two-and-a-half lengths clear of 2024 winner I Am Maximus 12 months ago, but has been declared a non-runner having been reported to be coughing. <\/p>\n

He was attempting to become just the second back-to-back winner since Red Rum was a triple champion in the 1970s. <\/p>\n

When the 2026 field was announced on Wednesday, Patrick had opted to ride last year’s third-placed horse Grangeclare West instead, with Tom Bellamy surprisingly picking up the ride on Nick Rockett.<\/p>\n

First reserve Pied Piper, who is trained by three-time winner Gordon Elliott, has taken the spare place in the 34-runner field. <\/p>\n

I Am Maximus is the 7-1 favourite<\/a> for the race, but will have to become the first top weight to win the race since Red Rum in 1974. <\/p>\n

He will be ridden by Paul Townend for the third year in a row – one of eight Mullins-trained horses now in the field – as he looks to become the first trainer to win the race in three successive years since Vincent O’Brien between 1953 and 1955. <\/p>\n

Townend finished second to 33-1 chance Nick Rockett in last year’s race,<\/a> when Mullins horses claimed the first three positions.<\/p>\n

The Grand National starts at 16:00 BST on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year’s winner Nick Rockett has been withdrawn from this weekend’s Grand National at Aintree. Nick Rockett –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-389753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}