Punters thinking of having an ante post bet on current Grand National joint favourite Hot Weld could be forced to think again after the recent comments of trainer Ferdy Murphy.

 The 8 year old was the star of the stable last season winning the Scottish National and Bet Fred Gold Cup but Murphy has signalled a note of caution regarding the necessary ground conditions at Aintree.

He stated that Hot Weld “wouldn’t win a seller in soft ground.” He also went on to say: “The Grand National has to be the big aim and we would love to run him as he looks the ideal type, but the ground would have to be in his favour, and if it wasn’t then we would go back to Ayr.”

Ante post punters can tell from what Murphy is saying here that the National is the big goal for the yard but soft ground would almost certainly bring an end to his participation in the race. The chances of soft ground must be unlikely at that time of year but punters should take that into consideration if they take the 20/1 with Better

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Grand National 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.