Ronnie Bartlett's pair of guaranteed Grand National runners to miss Aintree unless ground dries out

A couple of horses who are guaranteed a run in Saturday's Grand National are set to miss the race if rain continues to pour, according to owner Ronnie Bartlett.

The talented Galvin and Stattler are 33-1 and 40-1 chances but will run in the Randox-sponsored showpiece only if the ground dries out. The going on the Grand National course was described as soft, heavy in places on Sunday.

Bartlett said on Sunday: "Unless the going description starts with good to soft, I'll definitely not be running them. 

"They're in good shape and, if it was good to soft, I'd say they'd have a good chance, but it's just typical how the ground is. The ground stopped us at Cheltenham when the Cross Country race was cancelled too.

"We took Banbridge to Cheltenham and then did the silly thing of running him in the Ryanair [finished a well-beaten ninth], so I'd say Galvin could go for the Scottish Grand National and we'll maybe wait to run Stattler at the end of the season in the bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown. If not, we'd look at something at the Punchestown festival for them."

Stattler: won the National Hunt Chase in 2022Credit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Aintree's flagship meeting starts on Thursday, with the going described as soft on the chase and hurdle tracks, and clerk of the course Sulekha Varma said on Sunday: "We're expecting heavy rain through the early part of the week and then it's looking drier through the three days of racing.

"It's been a breezy day today, but we have had a few showers coming through with a few heavy bursts this morning. There are showers this afternoon, so any drying we've seen as a result of the high winds has been counteracted fairly rapidly by the rainfall.

"There's a band of low pressure that's going to come across Britain and bring more rain and they're not entirely sure when the worst of it is coming through, but it's going to spread across Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, with heavy rain on occasion. There's uncertainty with it though."

Randox Grand National, 4.00 Aintree, Saturday
bet365: 5 Corach Rambler, 8 I Am Maximus, 9 Vanillier, 10 Meetingofthewaters, 12 Kitty's Light, 14 Mr Incredible, Panda Boy, 16 Mahler Mission, 20 bar

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