Disclaimer: Compulsive gambling can harm your health and relationships, and leave you in serious debt. If you have a problem with gambling and you’d like to stop, support and treatment is available. To find information, support and counselling on gambling addiction, please visit the NHS website: www.bit.ly/NHSGambling

SO HERE we are again 12 months on from I Am Maximus sprinting clear of his rivals in the 2024 Grand National. What last year’s race showed us or rather confirmed to us was that this greatest of races is no longer the massive test of horse and jockey that we have seen down through the years.

It’s four-and-a-quarter miles, not four-and-a-half, the fences on the second circuit take little jumping as the spruce has been knocked off the top of them and we are six horses down from the usual maximum field.

Yes we have to pander to public opinion, which — don’t get me wrong — does matter, but to my eyes still calling it the Grand National degrades the massive test that former jockeys and horses showed us when winning what I now call the old and real Grand National from days gone by.