As the name suggests, the Scottish Grand National Festival is a two-day meeting staged as Ayr Racecourse, in South Ayrshire, Scotland, in April, typically a week or two after the Grand National Festival at Aintree. The Festival takes its name from the feature race, the Scottish Grand National, a ‘Premier Handicap’ run over four miles, open to horses aged five years and upwards and currently worth £200,000 in prize money. Despite its proximity to the Grand National, horses do occasionally contest both races, although the legendary Red Rum, in 1974, remains the only horse to complete the double in the same season.
Trends-wise, the Scottish Grand National has proved fairly punter-friendly in the past decade or so, with three joint-favourites, one second-favourite and one third-favourite victorious in the last 10 runnings. However, winners at 33/1, 25/1 (twice), 18/1 and 14/1 in the same period suggest that punters should not be afraid to look beyond the obvious for prospective selections.
The feature race on the Friday is the Hillhouse Quarry Handicap Chase, nowadays a Class 2 event run over an extended two and a half miles and worth £50,000 in prize money. Aside from the Scottish Grand National itself, an eight-race Saturday card includes a succession of high-class, valuable contests, of which only the closing National Hunt Flat Race is worth less than £10,000 to the winner.
The second most valuable race of the day is the Scottish Champion Hurdle, a Grade 2 limited handicap run over two miles and worth £56,270 to the winner, at the last count. Although not quite race it once was, the Scottish Champion Hurdle has been won by the likes of Comedy Of Errors, Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon, Granville Again and Alderbrook, all of whom also won the Champion Hurdle proper at the Cheltenham Festival.