{"id":515938,"date":"2026-04-06T14:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515938\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T14:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:13:08","slug":"grand-national-2026-i-am-maximus-nick-rockett-head-confirmations-for-aintree-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515938\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand National 2026: I Am Maximus &#038; Nick Rockett head confirmations for Aintree race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">L&#8217;Homme Presse, French Dynamite and Now Is The Hour were all taken out on Monday, while three others below the cut-off line were also scratched. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The field is again set to be dominated by Irish trainer Mullins, with the three-time winner currently having nine horses guaranteed to run. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Joining I Am Maximus and Nick Rockett are last year&#8217;s third-placed Grangeclare West, Spanish Harlem, Lecky Watson, Champ Kiely, High Class Hero, Captain Cody and Quai De Bourbon. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gordon Elliott, who has also trained three National winners, has five entries with Gerri Colombe, Firefox and Favori De Champdou &#8211; the beaten favourite in the Cross Country Chase at the Cheltenham Festival &#8211; towards the top of the weights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Another of Elliott&#8217;s stable, Pied Piper, is currently 35th on the list and will get a run if one more horse withdraws. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Ben Pauling-trained Twig is the final guaranteed runner, although Spillane&#8217;s Tower has maintained his entry at this stage despite his owner telling RTE on Sunday he is an intended runner in Thursday&#8217;s Aintree Bowl instead. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Firefox is also entered in Friday&#8217;s Topham over the Grand National fences. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Henry de Bromhead, who won the race in 2021 with Rachael Blackmore and Minella Times, trains Monty&#8217;s Star and Gorgeous Tom. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gavin Cromwell trains Perceval Legallois, who was a faller last year, and Cheltenham Festival winner Final Orders. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dan Skelton will be represented by mare Panic Attack as he closes in on the UK trainers&#8217; championship for the first time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies-trained Beauport will carry the colours of Bryan and Philippa Burrough, whose Corbiere won in 1983 as Jenny Pitman became the first female trainer to triumph.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nigel is a two-time winner of the race in 1998 and 2022 and the stable are also set to saddle Top of the Bill, who moved into the top 34 with Monday&#8217;s withdrawals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fourteen-time British champion trainer Paul Nicholls has no entries, while Nicky Henderson, who is yet to win the National, is also likely to have no runners with Hyland currently 41st on the list. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"L&#8217;Homme Presse, French Dynamite and Now Is The Hour were all taken out on Monday, while three others&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-515938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}