By Don Clippinger
Trainer Willie Mullins has referred to Wicklow Bloodstock Ltd.'s Wicklow Brave (GB) (Beat Hollow {GB}) as “utterly unique,” and so he is.
The probable favorite in Saturday's GI Grand National at the Far Hills Races in New Jersey, Ireland-based Wicklow Brave has done it all. He has won a Group 1 race on the flat, he has won a Group 1 hurdle race, and he now is conquering steeplechase fences in a career that has banked more than $1.3-million for Wicklow Bloodstock's Nick Peacock.
His career purses more than double those of his 11 opponents in the 2 5/8-mile Grand National, including Sideways Stable's Jury Duty (Ire) (Well Chosen {GB}), who is returning to America for a shot at a second Grand National win after last year's 3 1/4-length victory.
Wicklow Brave, now 10, heads an international contingent that makes up half of the Grand National field, either based overseas or making their first Stateside start for American owners and their new trainers.
Heading the American contingent is Bruton Street-US's Scorpiancer (Ire) (Scorpion {Ire}), the 2017 Eclipse Award winner who is likely to be the third betting choice behind Wicklow Brave and Jury Duty.
While Gordon Elliott-trained Jury Duty has struggled to find his best form this year, Wicklow Brave has moved bravely into his third major discipline with aplomb. He was always meant to race over fences, but he had sufficient speed to go long, very long, on the flat.
Mullins readily mixed some flat starts with the hurdle racing, and Wicklow Brave won the G1 Palmerstown House Irish St. Leger in 2016 after a third-place finish the previous year.
The following spring, he won the G1 Betdaq Punchestown Irish Champion Hurdle before a fourth in the Irish St. Leger and unplaced finishes in the G1 BMW Caulfield Cup and G1 Emirates Melbourne Cup in Australia.
After a third in this year's Irish Champion Hurdle, Mullins sent Wicklow Brave over steeplechase fences, and the result was a victory in Galway's Guinness Open Gate Brewery Steeplechase. Paul Townend, who has ridden him to three straight wins over chase fences, will be in the saddle for the Grand National.
Jury Duty was put away after his Grand National victory last October and, after an initial win, tried the really big fences at Aintree in the G1 Grand National, in which he unseated jockey Robbie Power. He was pulled up in the G1 Irish Grand National and finished sixth in Gowran Park's PWC Champion Steeplechase on Oct. 5. Also coming out of that race is Elliott-trained The Storyteller (Ire) (Shantou).
American trainer Jack Fisher has all but locked up the 2019 titles by wins and earnings, with more than $1-million in the bank, and he used Belmont Park's GI Lonesome Glory Handicap as a prep race for Scorpiancer's march to the Grand National.
The 10-year-old won the GI Calvin Houghland Iroquois for the second time in May and was given the summer off. He returned in the Lonesome Glory and finished a tiring fifth, which should tighten him a notch for the Grand National.
Also in the Grand National field is the Lonesome Glory winner, Wendy Hendriks' Surprising Soul (Perfect Soul {Ire}), who usually runs well and was a seriously overlooked 17.60-to-1 at Belmont, even after finishing second, a length behind Scorpiancer, in the Iroquois.
Racing Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard never is to be overlooked, and he is bringing back Hudson River Farms' Iranistan (Einstein {Brz}) in the year's toughest spot. Iranistan breezed through his first three jumps starts last year and was favored in Saratoga Race Course's GI A. P. Smithwick Memorial, in which he finished second, and the GI New York Turf Writers Cup, in which he was third.
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