American Grand National preview: Gordon Elliott on his two runners

Last year the trainer won a remarkable five of the six races on the Far Hills card, including Zanahiyr's victory in the feature race. He’s back to defend his title.

“We’ve got five going over and they’ve all travelled over in good form. We’ve five running in four different races and we’re looking forward to it,” the trainer told Racing TV.

“We won five of the six races last season, the other race was a Flat race, and we couldn’t have a runner in it, it was one of my best days as a trainer. To travel to the other side of the world and have five winners on the one card was unbelievable.

“We have a good team going over but I just don’t know if everything can go as smoothly as it did last year. We’ve chances in them all.

“Jack (Kennedy) rides Western Fold and Danny (Gilligan) rides Zanahiyr. There’s a good bit of rain over there now which could play into Zanahiyr’s hands rather than Western Fold’s.

“Zanahiyr has been a great servant but he’s not getting any younger and Jack probably went with the younger legs, but both horses are in good form. It will probably still be beautiful ground over there, they’ve had a lot of rain the last two days, but it won’t bother me.

“It’s been a very lucky spot to us, we’ve got a lot of clients, American owners, out of it and it’s been great.”

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