Taaffe hopes for easy pickings

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The nine-year-old ran a tremendous race to take minor honours behind Silver Birch and McKelvey 12 months ago and has enjoyed a good build-up this time round.

Taaffe said: "His preparation has gone well and we just hope he has as much luck in-running as he had last year. It's a Grand National and anything can happen so we're just hoping we runs a nice race."

Nigel Twiston-Davies ruled out Ollie Magern through injury but the Gloucestershire trainer will still have four runners after Ardaghey joined Knowhere, Fundamentalist and Naunton Brook when Opera Mundi was withdrawn this morning.

Barry Simpson, racing manager for owner Sir Robert Ogden, said: "He's got an infection which has caused swelling in a joint. We could have left it until tomorrow morning but there's a reserve system in place and we want to play the game fairly."

Ardaghey will be ridden by David England, while stablemate Naunton Brook is now the mount of Andrew Tinkler.

Tony McCoy bids to make it 13th-time lucky in the National when he gets the leg-up on the Jonjo O'Neill-trained Butler's Cabin.

And despite the presence of a number of other JP McManus-owned runners, notably King Johns Castle, McCoy insisted it was not a hard decision to plump for last year's Irish Grand National and Cheltenham Festival winner.

"It wasn't a tough choice to ride him, but I've picked the wrong one a few times before," said McCoy, who is the retained rider for legendary Irish gambler McManus.

"He's won an Irish National and the four-miler at Cheltenham so you'd have to think that there's not much of a question mark from a staying point of view. I just thought this one has more potential of winning a Grand National than JP's other entries."