I Am Maximus provides Capital Stud's Authorized with a modern era record in the Grand National

Click here to add us to your Google preferred sources or find out more here

Capital Stud's evergreen stallion Authorized set a modern era record in the Grand National, siring his fourth win in the race when I Am Maximus regained his crown in the Aintree showpiece.

The Willie Mullins-trained gelding joins the stallion's other two-time winner of the race Tiger Roll, who scored back-to-back triumphs in 2018 and 2019. 

With this latest victory, Authorized moves clear of three stallions with as many wins. Cottage was the first to complete the feat with Workman (1939), Lovely Cottage (1946) and Sheila’s Cottage (1948), while Vulgan followed suit courtesy of Team Spirit (1964), Foinavon (1967) and Gay Trip (1970), and Quorum's three wins were all provided by the mighty Red Rum (1973, 74 and 1977). 

Authorized: sire of dual Grand National winners I Am Maximus and Tiger Rolle

Bred by Ronald Huggins and George William Tiney, I Am Maximus was picked up for €26,000 by Hubert Barbe’s Horse Racing Advisory as a yearling at the Arqana Autumn Sale in 2017. 

He is out of a Poliglote mare, Polysheba, who won on the Flat over a mile in France for Andre Fabre and the Wertheimer family and was then bought by Huggins for €7,500 at an Osarus mixed sale in 2014.

The ten-year-old was conceived when Authorized, the 2007 Derby winner, was standing at Haras du Logis in France. After two seasons in Turkey, the 22-year-old was brought back to Europe and relocated to Capital Stud in 2023. He stands at County Kilkenny stud for a private fee.

Authorized's other leading performers include Grade 1 winners Nichols Canyon, Readin Tommy Wrong, Echoes In Rain and Let Me Love. 

First Grade 1 winner for Jack Hobbs

Overbury’s Jack Hobbs continued his fruitful season when his son Bossman Jack delivered the stallion his first Grade 1 winner courtesy of his triumph in Saturday’s Turners Mersey Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree. 

Trained by Dan Skelton, the lightly raced six-year-old entered Saturday’s contest after a solid sixth-placed effort in the Turners Novices' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. He chalked up his fourth career triumph with a dominant five-and-a-half-length success over his stable companion Soldier Reeves. 

Bossman Jack hails from the son of Halling’s second crop, conceived off a covering fee of £4,000. The gelding was bred by Richard and Lizzie Kelvin-Hughes’s Trull House Stud and was signed for £50,000 by Skelton’s scout Ryan Mahon through the Chugg family's Little Lodge Farm draft at Goffs UK Spring Sale in 2023. 

Bossman Jack wins the Mersey Novices' Hurdle at AintreeCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

The gelding is out of the Kelvin-Hughes’s two-time winning homebred daughter of Presenting, Lindeman, making him a half-brother to the smart Gidleigh Park, a five-time winner under rules for Harry Fry and The Eyre Family. Bossman Jack is one of six winners from 12 runners for Jack Hobbs out of daughters of Presenting. 

Since producing Bossman Jack, Lindeman has proved difficult to get in foal with the mare missing to Cracksman, Jack Hobbs’s studmate Golden Horn and most recently Nathaniel. 

It has been a breakthrough season for Jack Hobbs, headlined by his first Graded winner when the Lucy Wadham-trained Jax Junior landed the Grade 2 Pendil Novices' Chase at Kempton in February. All told, the stallion has sired 43 winners from 177 runners over jumps which fires at a strike-rate of 25 per cent, while this cohort also includes Intense Approach and I’m A Lumberjack, who have both made the podium in black-type company. 

This season he has edged inside the top 50 jumps stallions in Britain and Ireland. His winner count this term stands at 22 from 112 runners (20 per cent). 

The stallion is standing for an unchanged fee of £4,000.

Read more:

The good, the bad and the ugly: analysing buyers’ performance at last year’s breeze-up sales 

Galileo's enduring influence on display at Randwick as Changingoftheguard stuns in Sydney Cup 

‘No matter how much data is available, horsemanship will always remain a vital component’ - Billy Jackson-Stops in the breeze-up Q&A hot seat 

Good Morning Bloodstock is our unmissable email newsletter. Leading bloodstock journalist Martin Stevens provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday.