Gold Cup winner Native River unlikely to run in Grand National

OWNER Garth Broom is optimistic the fire still burns brightly in Native River as the 2018 Gold Cup winner returns to the scene of his finest hour for the Cotswold Chase.

Now an 11-year-old, Broom’s pride and joy has won more than £1m in prize-money – with a Welsh National and a Hennessy Gold Cup also on his record.

And, while Saturday’s race will reveal whether Native River is a genuine contender for this year’s Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup, a tilt at the Randox Grand National appears unlikely.

Broom and his wife Anne seem against it. “We’re not really National people – I wouldn’t advise people putting any money ante-post on him,” he said.

“I don’t even know if we’ll enter him. We find there’s too many horses, it’s a lottery – and usually it’s not his ground in April.

“If our aim was to win the Grand National then fair enough, but ours isn’t. If you were to think with your head then he’s made for it – but we tend to think with our hearts!

“He doesn’t owe us anything, he’s been absolutely brilliant. If the ground was right the (Aintree) Bowl might be more on the agenda, but it depends how he runs on Saturday and in the Gold Cup. If he has a hard race there then we wouldn’t ask him to go to Aintree.”

Today’s meeting at Catterick has been abandoned while Wetherby remains waterlogged in places ahead of tomorrow’s card which remains doubtful.

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