J J Slevin’s William Hill Blog: Intense Raffles on right path to future Gold Cups

Winning the Grade 3 Irish Grand National on Easter Monday with Intense Raffles was a great thrill. It was a great performance from a very nice horse and, of course, a very nice race to win. He did give everyone a bit of a scare when reaching for the last, but he had plenty of energy left and saw it out well.

It’s even more impressive, winning a race over that trip carrying 11st 4lbs, when you consider that Intense Raffles is only a six-year-old. There haven’t been too many horses to do that – Burrows Saint is the only other six-year-old to win the Irish National in the last decade.

He came over from France, having won a few races over there for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, so I kept an eye on him, as I always do with the horses running in these colours. Everyone thought he was very good and quite an exciting horse.

I think that the owners could even be dreaming about future Gold Cups with this horse. It’s a massive way to go to reach that high level, but he’s definitely on the right path. He’s shown us all what he can do. We’ll have to wait and see what the handicapper does with him now.

It was a pleasure to ride for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede in the double green colours; they’re in racing for all the right reasons and it was great to pick up this spare ride and win the race for them. I’d love the opportunity to do so again in the future. Fair play to Tom [Gibney] too, who has really shown just what he can do with the right horse. He’ll hopefully get a few more nice horses off the back of it.

Horses to keep an eye on at Aintree

I’d keep Banbridge front and centre of your notebooks. He didn’t show up at Cheltenham purely because the ground was too soft for him, so we’ll be hoping for better going at Aintree. He’s a very, very good horse on his day.

Solness should give me a good spin in the Topham and then hopefully Panda Boy is in with a decent shout in the Grand National. He’s got some very strong form in big valuable chases and, with a bit of luck, should have every chance. He handles soft ground too, so ticks a lot of boxes at the moment.

I haven’t actually managed to complete a Grand National ride yet, so I’ll start by getting around safely! Having now won the Irish National, though, I’ve a bit more confidence and – hopefully – luck on my side.