Silver Birch wins the 2007 Grand National

Silver Birch wins the 2007 Grand National, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

This is what I wrote on the BBC website yesterday:

"I'd love to see Ballycassidy continue as he left off last year only this time jump all the way to the finish, however he seems to have regressed this year, like his stable mate Take The Stand. McKelvey could do very well, although at 20-1, any value seems to have slipped away.

Otherwise, Slim Pickings ran a great race at Cheltenham and could do well at 33-1 and there is Le Duc at 50-1.

Victor Chandler are giving you your stake back if your horse falls, which is something which could have been useful last year when seeing Ballycassidy topple over at 100-1 when seven lengths in the lead".

What happened is as follows:

Ballycassidy did set off in the lead and stayed there all the way, jumping brilliantly until losing his jockey at the eighth from last fence, having fallen when in a clear lead at the sixth from last fence last year.

There were two horses in contention at the last fence Silver Birch and Slim Pickings (who I pinpointed yesterday). The latter jumped badly and so gave the lead to Silver Birch, whilst ten lengths back McKelvey was jumping in the third place. There is a very long run in to the finishing line and unlike yesterday when I was shouting for Dunbrody Millar to hold on, I was now shouting for McKelvey to catch up and overtake Silver Birch. He nearly did, but the line came just too soon, so we had to make do with 2nd and 3rd places.... and I can tell you that that is a long long way from actually WINNING! Oh well, 'my' horses gave me a great run and I end up after three days of racing with as much money on my bookmaker account as I had to start off with. Could have been better, could have been worse, but it was mostly fun.