Horse Hound – 9 April 2026

Summary

Nick Rockett defends the Randox Grand National at Aintree on 11 April, and Horse & Hound's 9 April 2026 issue hands Carl Evans all 34 runners to sort. Mary King retires after 46 seasons. Gemma Stevens wins Thoresby. Pammy Hutton and Graham Fletcher argue in the opinion pages.

Carl Evans walks through every runner for Saturday's £1m Randox Grand National. Reigning winner Nick Rockett carries 3lb more and has run once this season. I Am Maximus, the 2024 hero, is 10 and not getting quicker. Grangeclare West won February's Bobbyjo Chase, beating seven rivals who reoppose. The news desk leads on Mary King, 64, retiring after 46 seasons, two Badminton wins and six Olympics. Then the FEI's Sports Forum: neurectomy bans, pergolide exemptions and iced horses within 30 minutes of inspection.

Pammy Hutton, in the dressage column, argues older riders get written off and cites being cut dead by a young international. Graham Fletcher relives 12 days of Doha horses stranded by war and demands British Showjumping align its new bit and bridle rules with the FEI, not fight them. Jennifer Donald profiles Jessica Burke, 34, who takes one horse — the 10-year-old Good Star Du Bary, nicknamed Rocky — to her first World Cup Final in Fort Worth after winning Bordeaux.

Reports fill pages 42 to 60. Gemma Stevens wins the Grantham Cup at Thoresby on Cooley Park Muze after a giant meltdown on her first three rides; 41.4% of cross-country starters faulted. Tom Jackson, Tim Price and Ros Canter use Thoresby as Badminton prep. Vet Clinic spends six pages on colic surgery decisions. And a 14-year-old show pony, Rotherwood Fantasia, gets a profile after two HOYS championships at 147.7cm.

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Content Guide

▸ Cover Story

p.34 · Who will win the Grand National?

Carl Evans sizes up all 34 runners for Saturday's £1m Randox Grand National at Aintree. Reigning winner Nick Rockett carries 3lb more and has run once. I Am Maximus, the 2024 hero, is 10 now and not getting quicker. Grangeclare West won February's Bobbyjo Chase, beating seven rivals who reoppose here. Banbridge's stamina is questioned on his first try over these fences; Haiti Couleurs arrives with Welsh and Irish National wins. Gerri Colombe has never fallen in 18 starts. Weights, trainers and jockey bookings included.

▸ News

p.4 · True legend: Mary King retires after 46 seasons

Mary King calls it a day at 64, part-way through her 46th season. Two Badminton wins — King William in 1992, Star Appleal in 2000 — plus Burghley in 1996 with Star Appleal and five Gatcombe national titles. Six Olympics brought team silver in 2004 and 2012, and bronze in 2008. William Fox-Pitt pays tribute. King says the decision clicked after Moreton: better that daughter Emily ride the horse at Thoresby. She now backs Emily's career.

p.8 · Major questions to answer as vet competition rules change

The FEI opens its veterinary rulebook and asks the industry hard questions. Should palmar neurectomy be banned outright? Should pergolide, used for Cushing's disease, come with a therapeutic use exemption? Should icing within 30 minutes of a horse inspection be prohibited as pain-masking? Should comfort fluids go in without a diagnosis? Jenny Hall, Caterina Termine and Göran Åkerström raised the topics at the Sports Forum. Two studies on IV fluids are commissioned. By Lucy Elder.

p.9 · Tweaks to Olympics but three-rider teams stay

LA28 gets tinkering, not surgery, and four-rider teams stay dead. Eventing's penalty for substituting the alternate combination may rise above 20. Jumping could get medal jump-offs for silver and bronze, not just gold. Paralympic horses must be seven, not six. International Jumping Riders Club president François Mathy Jr floats the Longines League of Nations format for team jumping; Áine Power calls the competitor quota a hard number. Final versions land in December.

▸ Opinion & People

p.14 · 'Deemed too old to bother with'

Pammy Hutton uses her dressage column to complain about being written off. A young international, she writes, cut her dead; someone asked whether she still rode at your age. Framing older age as the underdog costs the sport knowledge. She also works through gold regional entries — barely 12 in some classes this winter, against 45 or 50 in the past — and warns that overseas riders training for BHS assessments on the wrong visa are often doing so illegally.

p.16 · 'It was a time of abject anxiety'

Graham Fletcher should have been in Doha for the tour's final five-star show. War broke out two days after he and son Olli flew home, leaving five of Olli's horses stranded for 12 days. Guillaume Simon stayed with them through nightly missile interceptions; Peter Charles mooted a 600-mile desert drive to Saudi Arabia. The horses flew to Europe on 9 March. Fletcher also wants British Showjumping to align its new bit and bridle rules with the FEI.

p.18 · Jessica Burke

Jennifer Donald profiles the Galway maths teacher who quit teaching in 2019 and now rides one five-star horse to a World Cup Final. Good Star Du Bary — Rocky, a 10-year-old grey by Rock'N Roll Semilly — won Bordeaux's qualifier in February with the only double clear, outjumping Daniel Deusser and Yuri Mansur. Burke arrives in Fort Worth via Paris, with a Ballyward Equestrian string of young horses waiting in Northern Ireland. Owner Liam Nicholas travels out with family.

p.22 · All in a day's work: the boot guru

Paul Ewing survived cancer, then turned boot repair into a business. He was Douglas Bunn's batman at Hickstead, learning to polish hunt boots until he could see his face in the tops. Now he collects and returns riding boots around Coombelands every Thursday. One customer's six wrecked pairs, worth £3,000, were saved for £500. Pink Celeris boots became brown for £95. Soles, zips and calf patches cost £60. As told to Eleanor Jones.

p.24 · In the spotlight: Rotherwood Fantasia

Bethan Simons profiles the double HOYS champion. Rotherwood Fantasia — Flossie, 14, 147.7cm, by Landemann Nighthawk out of Rotherwood Flight Of Fancy — took the 148cm and part-bred titles at Horse of the Year Show with Emma Harker. Owner Jenny Harker promised two bags of Stud Muffins, then doubled it. Breeder Elizabeth Mansfield-Parnell remembers a foal whose stride caught every eye. Judge Fi Cabrol recalls a leggy novice who muddled her legs, then owned the International Arena.

▸ Vet Clinic

p.26 · Colic crisis

Rachel Tucker MRCVS walks owners through severe colic, from referral to the decision nobody wants to make. Most cases seen in practice are mild and resolve with treatment, but twisted gut is not. The feature sets out what happens at the hospital, which signs point to surgery, and why risk depends on the procedure and how sick the horse already is. One line frames the whole piece: the goal is always to avoid surgery if possible.

▸ Reports

p.42 · Stevens finds her 'Muze'

Gemma Stevens wins the Lycetts Grantham Cup at Thoresby Park on Cooley Park Muze, a 10-year-old she took on as a green seven-year-old that had been eliminated twice at 90cm. She admits to a giant meltdown and tears after cross-country trouble on her first three rides. Stuart Buntine's track faulted 41.4% of starters; the Rathbones Garden caused 11 problems. Tom Jackson, Will Rawlin and Selina Milnes fill the next places, all Badminton-bound.

p.48 · Stars of the future

Pony of the Year Show, Area UK, hands the 1.40m under-25 grand prix to Fergal Holohan, 19, on CES Celtic Son — a horse sent to him as sales livery eight months ago that his parents then bought. Aimee Paxton wins the under-18 final on Chilli's Duke, bred by Gemma Stevens out of King's Gem. Alex Leggott takes the children-on-horses title after a 12-strong jump-off. Anya Dewey-Clarke retains the 128cm crown, this time on Kilcreene Snapdragon.

p.54 · Racing: Fairyhouse

The racing pages carry Fairyhouse, plus the result that former showjumper Nicole Lockhead Anderson won the Ladies National Handicap Chase on The Gradual Slope — her first win under Rules. Point-to-point from Middleton follows. Aintree how-to-follow details sit here too: the meeting runs 9-11 April, ITV Racing shows every day, and a 16 April special report promises analysis and interviews. Website readers get five free articles before the paywall.

p.60 · A career of tremendous variety

H&H interviews Ian Hawkins about a working life spent moving between hounds, horses and country. The piece sits near two other stable-yard reads: Tessa Waugh's Goodnight hunting diary on page 74 and a Heart of the Yard feature on page 64, where grooms list what stays within arm's reach in the tack room. Hunting keeps its usual space, and the diary continues its long run as the magazine's most reliably read back page.

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Editor's Take

The form guide justifies the cover. Carl Evans separates the three Willie Mullins runners instead of lumping them together, and the Bobbyjo Chase line on Grangeclare West is the evidence most tipsters skipped. The gap is news treatment: Mary King retires after 46 seasons, two Badminton wins and six Olympics, and gets a news story rather than a retrospective. Opinion carries the issue — Hutton on age, Fletcher on British Showjumping's bit rules — because both write as people with something at stake. Colic crisis earns its six pages. If you buy one April issue, buy this one.

Strengths
• Grand National guide gives every one of 34 runners a reasoned verdict, not a form line.
• Opinion pages argue: Hutton on ageism, Fletcher on British Showjumping's bit rules.
• Colic feature names the signs that require surgery, and the odds after it.

Weaknesses
• Mary King's 46-season retirement is a news story, not the retrospective it deserves.
• Property and kit pages, 30 to 32, are shopping copy at the issue's weakest stretch.

Verdict: Recommended — Aintree form guide and Mary King's farewell make this a keeper; opinion pages carry the rest.