It’s day one of the hugely anticipated Grand National Festival with the big one still to come on Saturday. There are seven races on Thursday, the meeting beginning with no fewer than four Grade 1 events.

The Red Rum is a £100,000 premier handicap, named after the great three-time National hero. We’re going over two miles on the Mildmay Course for this one, the 15-runner field taking on 12 fences.

We’re on soft ground for the National meeting and there could be more rain to come. That may yet be a crucial factor.

Last year’s winner Dancing On My Own carried 11st 10lbs to victory. Before that, winning weights between 10-5 and 10-10 were much more common. We have to decide whether that was a one-off, perhaps owing to the class of the horse, Henry De Bromhead and Rachael Blackmore, or a more permanent change in trends.

In longer term, who knows? For now, on this bad ground, it seems those carrying lower weights and improving at the same time will have an advantage. With that in mind, these are our top six against the field:

Main Contenders

Dancing On My Own

Last year’s winner is a class act but he’s carrying even more weight (12st, topweight) and is now ten years old.

That makes this a tough task and the ground is worse now. He may still be single figures for this race, but is an each-way chance at best on all known evidence.

Heltenham

The Skelton team clearly knew how to get their horses ready for Cheltenham, sometimes in circumstances many punters weren’t comfortable.

While their other runner (Unexpected Party, below) ran and won there, this horse didn’t go that route and could be that bit fresher. Is he to peak here?

Heltenham is 5-10 now over fences and he is improving all the time, though the stable jockey rides the yard’s other runner.

Path D’oroux

Now this one is an interesting runner.

Trained by Gavin Cromwell in Ireland, Path D’oroux may well put off enough people to remain a nice price as he is yet to win in 8 attempts over fences, but that doesn’t tell the full story.

His weight of 11-2 is not bad, something we’re keeping at the forefront of our minds for this race, and he has been constantly improving over fences despite not getting his head in front.

After a runner-up effort at Leopardstown, that improvement led to another placed effort behind Unexpected Party at Cheltenham. He weakened late on that day, but on this course, with his trajectory and given the weight differences, he could easily improve past his conqueror that day.

Saint Roi

This horse has been very well backed and it’s hard to know whether the money is genuine. He does represent Willie Mullins and JP McManus, but his form has arguably gone steadily backwards ever since he was third in last year’s Arkle.

There’s no doubt he’s good, but he’s been going backwards and he carries 11-8, not a combo we want to be relying on at single-figure odds.

Sans Bruit

It’s good to see Bryony Frost on the scene, though one could ask why if she’s still trusted by this owner and by Paul Nicholls why others don’t use her. That’s a discussion for another day.

She rides Sans Bruit who learned his chasing trade in France. He was second at Chepstow recently and if he improves at an above-average rate then he is well in with a chance here.

Unexpected Party

Unexpected Party was well backed when he won at Chepstow last autumn. Since then, he has been awful, that is until he went to Cheltenham of course where he miraculously ran to the appropriate level to win the Grand Annual.

Dan Skelton stays on board for this race too, even though it’s possible the yard’s Heltenhan has the same or a better chance.

What we have to decide is, having been trained to peak at Cheltenham, does he have some residual energy and room for manoeuvre in the handicap, or was that all used up at the Festival?

Summary

Plenty of the better ones in this race are carrying over 11st which wasn’t ideal when profiling them.

Dan Skelton may hold a strong hand here with his Heltenham coming out better on our ratings than Unexpected Party, though Dan Skelton has chosen to ride the latter.

In any event, the one we like best is Gavin Cromwell’s PATH D’OROUX. The seven-year-old hasn’t been winning but he has been getting better, will like the conditions and has solid form from Cheltenham.