'I should have fears but I don't - in my guts I think he's a National horse'

Everybody wants a Grand National winner. Owners want to own one, punters want to back one, and for most trainers and jockeys it's a lifetime's ambition. For Evan Willliams, though, while it's not quite an afterthought this year, it's something of a Plan B.

Plan A was to win the Welsh National. For a proud son of Glamorgan, there was no other yearning available and he'd been knocking at the door of the historic Chepstow handicap since he took out his licence 18 years ago. There was, after all, plenty of history to live up to in the valleys round Fingerpost Farm, in the tiny village of Llancarfan.

There was his father Rhys, a dyed-in-the-wool farmer who rode in point-to-points, most notably on a horse called Norther, who went on to win the Welsh National in 1965, trained by Denzil Jenkins. There was the legendary 'Posy' Morel, the first woman to be granted a trainer's licence, who won a couple of runnings with Limonali in 1959 and 1961, before her yard was swallowed up by the building of Cardiff airport, which now sits in the eyeline between Llancarfan and Barry, which is where John Cook came from.