He backed 100-1 shot Foinavon to win the Randox Grand National and trained Numbersixvalverde to triumph in the race 16 years ago.
Now Martin Brassil is making a convincing case for more celebrations in the 174th running of the iconic event with Longhouse Poet. “The National was the first race I remember watching,” said 65-year-old Brassil. “Foinavon in 1967, I had a shilling each-way on him at 100-1, that’s why I remember it so well. It’s still the race – the people’s race.”
Brassil might only have 20 horses under his care at his stables in County Kildare but there are not many better at targeting the world’s most famous race. After Numbersixvalverde triumphed in 2006, he returned to finish sixth the following year behind Silver Birch.
Double Seven, the only other runner in the race for the father of four, also highlighted the former amateur rider’s knack at getting one ready when third behind Pineau De Re in 2014. The route to Aintree with Longhouse Poet has echoes of Numbersixvalverde as both horses won the Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park.
“The last time I had a runner in the Thyestes was when Numbersixvalverde won it,” explained Brassil. “He’s as good a lepper as Numbersixvalverde. He’s a bigger, stronger horse. Longhouse Poet was a classier individual over hurdles, having been placed in two Grade Ones as a novice. But he always had the stamp of a chaser.”
Darragh O’Keeffe, Ireland’s leading conditional rider two years ago who was in the saddle at Gowran Park, again gets the leg-up.
Brassil had the option of running in the Irish National, the race Numbersixvalverde won before conquering Aintree, but was concerned about the ground not being soft enough.
“It’s a big ask for a horse that has only run six times over fences, but overall he’s a very sound jumper,” he explained. “It’s not the National of yesteryear, with jumping not as important as it used to be – it’s more of a stamina test than one of jumping. He has enough weight but that shouldn’t be a problem as he’s a big strong horse.”
Longhouse Poet was not initially the horse Brassil and owners Sean Mulryan, chairman and CEO of the Ballymore Property Group, and his wife Bernardine had in mind.
“We went to look at another horse that had finished second,” said Brassil. “But Longhouse was such an impressive point winner so we went for him. He’s a lovely honest horse, loves his work, eats, sleeps, and he’s a pleasure to have.”
Brassil certainly knows a thing or two about how to come up with the goods on the big day. He enabled Mulryan to recoup his money after saddling City Island to win the owner’s sponsored Ballymore Hurdle at the 2019 Cheltenham Festival.
Training racehorses resembles walking a tightrope, especially in Ireland when you are faced with the powerhouses of Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott, but Brassil is far from ready to hoist up the white flag.
“It is fairly competitive everyday wherever you go,” he said. "You need to win races like the National just to let people know that you are still around.”
Longhouse Poet, at 16-1, falls short of Foinavon’s winning odds, but if he succeeds it will add another chapter in Brassil’s long association with the race he knows how to master.
