Grand National Opening Day Irish NH Tips

A former crack novice a couple of seasons ago he has been rejuvenated this season by the Henry De Bromhead team winning two of his previous starts at Navan and Cheltenham before finishing runner up to State Man at the Dublin Racing Festival last time when he had today's main market rival behind him. This has been the plan all season and he should be cherry ripe for this.

Add to that Impaire Et Passe seems to have been incredibly disappoint this season with each run worse than the last. He has a lot to prove now and with this having been the season goal for Bob Olinger since he came in from his summer break, he has less questions to answer than anything else in the field and that for me makes him NAP material.

This son of Saddler Maker has his conditions here and was an ultra-impressive winner of a Grade 1 Novice Chase here last season when he led his rivals a merry dance. It could be that this track plays to his strengths and with plenty question marks over most of the field and coming in here on the back of an excellent 2nd in the Gold Cup if that effort hasn't taken too much out of him, he should be very hard to beat.

He should get a good pace to aim at here and this is another race where plenty of his rivals have questions to answer for various reasons. He rates a strong bet for me albeit the price is a little of the short side, but I can only see it going one way on the day.

A winner of his last two starts, one over hurdles and one over fences, this is a horse from a yard in form. His win recently came off an Irish mark of 125 and while he races off 136 here that's the equivalent of 130/131 in Ireland which isn't as harsh as it seems. The second from last time at Gowran has come out and run a very good 2nd in a Listed handicap at Fairyhouse over Easter.

He has a lovely racing weight of 10st 8 and with John Shinnicks 7lb claim he has little or no weight to carry in conditions he loves. I can see him running well at each way double figure price. Here's hoping for a good run!