'Something is pulling me right. I’m gone. Thud. What?! What the hell just happened? How am I on the ground?'

“You realise where you are, and what you’re doing there, and what has just happened to you. And what follows is a hurt, a confused hurt – not a physical hurt; it’s a hurt combined with anger; it’s a what-will-people-think hurt; it’s an ashamed-of-my-own-ability hurt . . . and all you want then is a hatch door in the middle of the ring to open up . . .”
Floyd Patterson after losing the world heavyweight championship by knockout to Sonny Liston, 1964

I’m walking down the steps from the weigh-room into the Aintree parade ring carrying the Grand National trophy and leading the other 33 riders behind me.

There’s no Nick Rockett this year, his race against time and a poor preparation having been narrowly lost. Instead I’m wearing the red, white and blue of Grangeclare West. He’s in great form and won well last time. Leighton Aspell won two Grand Nationals in a row on different horses just over a decade ago, so why not me, too? There’s not much that hasn’t already been done in the previous 127 runnings.