Grand National 2026 Tips: Best Bets For Aintree Showpiece

The most watched race of the year is almost upon us; it’s Grand National time! Across the airwaves there are thousands of guides fighting for your eyeballs, with articles mentioning every horse taking part and betting tips galore.

Here at HorseRacing.Net our editor Billy Grimshaw has the racecard etched into his brain after hours of study and he makes the case for his best bets below…

I am ready to be cursing myself come quarter past four on Saturday if my 2025 pick at 40/1 Grangeclare West goes two places better in the 2026 renewal. I’m in no doubt he’d have beaten I Am Maximus at the very least last year were it not for his final fence blunder and this year he does not have Nick Rockett to go past given the reigning champion was a late withdrawal-poor Tom Bellamy.

However, in betting, price is everything and given we were getting north of 33/1 for most of the build-up to last year’s race and now must settle for 10/1 about Grangeclare West, he will not be carrying my cash this time around. He and I Am Maximus are probably each way bankers, especially with extra place bookies, but I suspect the former left his victory behind in 2025 and the latter has had his day in the sun with younger legs set to triumph come Saturday.

When I began penning this piece Panic Attack was still double figures, but the gallant mare is heading for favouritism at around 8/1 across the boards right now and, for all it’d be some story as no mare has claimed this race since 1959, I cannot see it. She has been tremendous this season for the Skeltons, winning the old Hennessy and Paddy Power Gold Cup, but her best runs have come with soft in the going description and as a ten year old mare on the back of a long season and 8/1? Nope.

There’s a group of JP McManus horses next in the market and I’d be much keener on Johnnywho upholding the Cheltenham form with Jagwar than a reversal, for all the latter is a shorter price here. Both look to be well weighted given their exploits last month but Jagwar - even in first time cheekpieces - does not jump well enough to win a Grand National to my eye, even the modern day iterations where the fences are much more forgiving. He also doesn’t like a battle.

Johnnywho tempted me, but this feels a bit of an afterthought with Cheltenham being his main target for the season according to his trainers. Iroko has a similar profile but scoped dirty after Cheltenham and I’m expecting him not to better his fifth in the race last season. The fourth and final JP horse around 10-16/1 is Oscar’s Brother, who is unexposed and has his chance, but I worry needs soft ground. There are bundles more horses worthy of a mention but enough of those I don’t like, let’s get into my 2026 Grand National tips.

My headline selection comes from Closutton and is 2025 Scottish Grand National hero CAPTAIN CODY. To call him a tricky customer would be an understatement, but Willie Mullins has almost certainly had this race as his target ever since he crossed the line up at Ayr last April. He’ll handle the weight of 10st10 with ease and will give Johnny Burke a huge chance of Grand National glory if, as I suspect, he settles better back in a big field like this and is economical with his jumping over these iconic obstacles. One thing he certainly won’t lack is stamina and on the long home straight at Aintree, I would not want to be a backer of anything that sees Captain Cody a length or so down stalking.

His price will hopefully hold around 18/1 given he is not in the first few Mullins names in the market and has a relatively low profile jockey booking. He is the horse I’m sweetest on, but I won’t be firing just one bullet at this big field handicap, however, and it’s another Mullins outsider who’s been on my mind for months that has made it into the staking plan: QUAI DE BOURBON. He could not reel in Haiti Couleurs in last season’s Irish Grand National but was giving Rebecca Curtis’s horse weight that day and now receives plenty. Additionally, he was only six when running a mighty race for third that day.

This season he began by disappointing when the 3/1 Troytown favourite, pulling up on heavy ground and doing the same thing on heavy again in the Thyestes. He did, however, bounce back to form with a confidence boosting third at Leopardstown in early March and I’ve come to the conclusion he will never act on heavy. He certainly won’t face that kind of test this Saturday and a mark of 151 undoubtedly underestimates this horse, especially as a seven-year-old with surely plenty of improvement left to come. 

I recommended last year to take advantage of any specials readers could find for Mullins to train the 1-2-3-4 and hopefully somebody made a few quid doing just that, although I wasn’t alone. This year it could well be a similar story, with the obvious front two in the market, my two fancies and the potential for improvement in Lecky Watson due to the going or Champ Kiely due to the marked step up in trip. That’s without mentioning the talented enigma Spanish Harlem too!

I’m less confident that the master of Closutton will be quite so dominant in the 2026 renewal of the Grand National, however, for the dreamers there is no harm in perming up some huge priced top finish accumulators with all the Mullins army. He is operating in another stratosphere to what we’ve seen before and doubting his genius is a risky game.