There are some who say that the Grand National has lost its soul, that it is now a race for powerhouse stables and elite, big-money owners, not the dreamers and windmill-tilters that helped to make it the People’s Race. But it seems that the news has yet to reach the small stable in Newmarket where Michael Keady prepares Horantzau d’Airy, the eight-year-old gelding that will head to Aintree on Saturday afternoon as a 100-1 chance to win the National, for a trainer who has yet to saddle a single winner over jumps.
There are no end of plotlines in the story of Horantzau d’Airy’s path to Liverpool that would ensure the film script would write itself if he could somehow join the list of National winners at three-figure odds this weekend.
