Randox Grand National on Saturday evening

Usually, horses have to be balloted out, but this Randox Grand National has only 34 runners. Gordon Elliot will field eight, including Galvin. Gordon would join Ginger McCain, Fred Rimell and George Dockeray on top of the roll of honour if one of his eight is successful. Delta Work has been flying over the last few weeks. He'll love the conditions.

Gordon first won in 2007 with Silver Birch, which saw him shoot to fame a few weeks before he had even trained his first winner in Ireland.

Tiger Roll landed the first of his National wins 11 years later and he followed up when justifying 4-1 favouritism in 2019, ridden on both occasions by Davy Russell.

"You need luck in the National more than any other race and we've been lucky enough to win it three times," said Gordon

"We'll never have another Tiger Roll, he was a horse of a lifetime, but I think there are a few in there this year capable of running big races for their owners. We're really looking forward to it."

Noble Yeats, champion in 2022, will carry most weight, with Nassalam, Coko Beach and Capodanno running 4lb lighter.

Last year's winner, Corach Rambler, is the clear favourite, having finished an impressive third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup last month. Corach Rambler will carry 11st 5lb, but the handicapper would surely have asked him to shoulder more weight had his run at Cheltenham come before, not after, the official weights were announced in February.

At the bottom of the weights, KItty's Light is guaranteed a run alongside two other horses – Chambard and Eklat De Rire – who were all given the same weight and same official ranking. It starts local time around 6.45 pm, so there will be live streaming on all satellite outlets.

***

Grade 1-winning Japanese jockey, Kota Fujioka, has died at age 35, following injuries sustained in a mid-race fall at Hanshin Racecourse. Kota sustained head and chest injuries, and was taken to hospital, but never regained consciousness. This is one of three deaths in just a month.

Kota rode over 800 winners during a career that began in 2007. His biggest success came on Namur in the 2023 Mile Championship.

Veteran rider, Yutaka Take, said: "I have never felt this much pain and sadness. Can't believe it. Going forward, I want to race with thoughts of Kota in my heart."

Last week, 23-year-old Stefano Cherchi passed away in an Australian hospital, two weeks after a fall during a race in Canberra. In late March, 25-year-old Yudai Tsukamoto was killed in a fall on Japan's provincial NAR circuit.