Joe Tizzard Blog | Aintree Day One
09 Apr 2026
Coral Racing Ambassador, Joe Tizzard, sends two horses to Aintree on the first day of the Grand National Festival, including Alexei in the Grade 1 Aintree Hurdle. Check out his thoughts in his latest exclusive preview below.
16:05 Aintree – Alexei
We’re taking a small but select team to Aintree this week. There was a decent gap between Cheltenham and this meeting this year, so hopefully the horses who ran last month will have had enough time to get over that and do themselves justice here.
There is a slight question mark over Alexei as this will be his first time running over 2½ miles, but if he hadn’t made the mistake at the last in the Champion Hurdle I think he would have been right there with The New Lion and Brighterdaysahead. On this flatter track there’s every reason to think he’ll get the extra distance, it’s not like he has the Cheltenham hill to climb at the end of it.
On ratings he’s only a couple of pounds behind The New Lion and just one behind Brighterdaysahead, although the mare gets weight obviously. He deserves to be here and if he proves he stays it opens up more options for next season. If not there are plenty of good races over two miles for him.
He’s been in really good form at home since Cheltenham, he’s handled his racing well this year and I couldn’t be happier with his home work. You don’t actually know what a race has taken out of them until you go again, but all the signs are positive. He does have a lot of speed, so we’ll look to play him late and really use that pace.
17:15 Aintree – Fairy Park
I think this is a really smart mare. We thought plenty of her ahead of her debut at Newbury in February and she ran so well that day, finishing second to Jeremy Scott’s nice mare [Princess Day] who we take on again here. I think she’s improved no end from that run, as ours tend to do in bumpers, we don’t have them revved up first time.
This is a very competitive looking race as you’d expect, there are plenty of winners in there, but our mare looks a million dollars. Whether she’s good enough to win this we’ll see, but we really do like her.
Joe Tizzard, Coral Racing Ambassador
16:05 Aintree – Alexei
We’re taking a small but select team to Aintree this week. There was a decent gap between Cheltenham and this meeting this year, so hopefully the horses who ran last month will have had enough time to get over that and do themselves justice here.
There is a slight question mark over Alexei as this will be his first time running over 2½ miles, but if he hadn’t made the mistake at the last in the Champion Hurdle I think he would have been right there with The New Lion and Brighterdaysahead. On this flatter track there’s every reason to think he’ll get the extra distance, it’s not like he has the Cheltenham hill to climb at the end of it.
On ratings he’s only a couple of pounds behind The New Lion and just one behind Brighterdaysahead, although the mare gets weight obviously. He deserves to be here and if he proves he stays it opens up more options for next season. If not there are plenty of good races over two miles for him.
He’s been in really good form at home since Cheltenham, he’s handled his racing well this year and I couldn’t be happier with his home work. You don’t actually know what a race has taken out of them until you go again, but all the signs are positive. He does have a lot of speed, so we’ll look to play him late and really use that pace.
17:15 Aintree – Fairy Park
I think this is a really smart mare. We thought plenty of her ahead of her debut at Newbury in February and she ran so well that day, finishing second to Jeremy Scott’s nice mare [Princess Day] who we take on again here. I think she’s improved no end from that run, as ours tend to do in bumpers, we don’t have them revved up first time.
This is a very competitive looking race as you’d expect, there are plenty of winners in there, but our mare looks a million dollars. Whether she’s good enough to win this we’ll see, but we really do like her.
Joe Tizzard, Coral Racing Ambassador
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