Tiger Roll out of Grand National after Aintree weights are revealed

Tiger Roll, the Grand National winner in 2018 and 2019, has been ruled out of an attempt to equal Red Rum’s record of three Aintree victories in April after the 12-year-old was handed a rating of 161 for this year’s race when the weights were published on Tuesday in Liverpool.

Michael O’Leary, Tiger Roll’s owner, has strongly criticised the weight allotted to his horse in the past two seasons and ran him in a Grade One contest at level weights at the Grand National meeting last year in preference to the big race.

Despite a 5lb drop in the ratings from last year’s mark, O’Leary issued a statement soon after the weights had been published, which again included fierce criticism of Martin Greenwood, the British Horseracing Authority’s senior chase handicapper.

“Tiger Roll is now 12 years old,” the statement said. “He is clearly not as good as he was at eight or nine, and yet the UK handicapper now rates him 2lb higher than his 159 rating in April 2019, when he won both the Boyne Hurdle and the Aintree Grand National.

“This rating is absurd, and unfair on a 12-year-old chaser. It is a pity that the handicapper won’t give Tiger Roll either a fair rating or a fair weight in the Aintree Grand National, where he could at least try to emulate Red Rum’s three wins.”

The statement added: “Since we are responsible for the welfare of Tiger Roll, we must protect him from the idiotic opinion of this handicapper. We therefore regret to announce that he will not run in the year’s Aintree Grand National.

“Instead, Tiger Roll will be trained for the cross-country race in Cheltenham [on 16 March] and there is every likelihood that win, lose or draw, this will be his last racecourse appearance. He will then return home for his well-earned