I Am Maximus won the 2024 Grand National in style. He finished second in 2025. He is back again at 15/2, carrying the weight of expectation and 11st 12lb.
But is the Grand National favourite overrated this year, and is the market getting carried away?
There is a version of this story where I Am Maximus lines up on Saturday as a former winner with unfinished business..
He won it two years ago in commanding fashion, ran a fine second last April when Nick Rockett beat him fair and square, and he is trained by Willie Mullins, owned by JP McManus, and ridden by Paul Townend.
Everything about his profile screams market favourite. But form is form, and the form this season has been hard to ignore for the wrong reasons.
A Season That Raises Questions
I Am Maximus has had three runs since his second-place finish at Aintree last April.
He was ninth of ten at Punchestown in November, beaten eighty lengths on Soft to Heavy ground.
In late December at Leopardstown he finished second, beaten two and a half lengths by Affordale Fury at odds of 50/1, which represented his only creditable effort of the season.
Then in February he returned to Leopardstown as a 9/1 shot and finished fifth of twelve, beaten nearly twenty-five lengths by Fact To File.
To summarise: one respectable run from three this season, bookended by performances that were well below what a Grand National favourite should be delivering.
He is now ten years old, and while that age is not a red flag in the National, a horse who has been running below his best all winter is a different conversation.
None of this is secret information. The market knows all of this. And yet here he is at 15/2, shorter than any other horse in the race.
The Wet Winter Problem
The argument for his price tends to rest on the idea that connections have been deliberately managing him through the winter, keeping him fresh for Aintree.
Mullins is a master trainer, and it is not unreasonable to assume there is a plan at work. But there is another way to read the same information.
This has been an unusually wet, disrupted winter for racing across Britain and Ireland. Prep races have been affected by weather, abandoned, or run on ground that was genuinely testing even by Irish standards. The full picture of several horses' form is harder to read than usual.
Which raises a thought worth sitting with. If a wet, testing winter is the accepted explanation for I Am Maximus running below his best, the same logic applies to horses further down the market.
There could easily be a horse whose form this winter looks ordinary on paper, but who has spent the past few months grinding through bottomless ground that simply does not suit him.
When the going dries out at Aintree and the fences are in front of him, a different horse entirely might show up. Three of them, in fact, look worth serious consideration.
Three Horses Who Could Capitalise
The most intriguing alternative in the market is Johnnywho, trained by Jonjo and AJ O'Neill and ridden by Richie McLernon.
He went to Cheltenham in March and won the Ultima Handicap Chase over three miles one furlong on Good to Soft, at 18/1, beating the well-fancied Jagwar by half a length. He arrives fresh, in confirmed form, at a realistic price of 16/1, and with a training team who know how to get horses ready for big days.
Panic Attack is a horse who has divided opinion all season, and that is partly because she has been one of the most impressive chaser in training in Britain or Ireland over the past twelve months. Dan Skelton's mare won the Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham and the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury.
The question has always been the trip, because this is a very different test to anything she has faced before. The word from connections has been consistent: she stays well enough to take her chance. At 18/1, she represents each-way value for anyone willing to accept the trip is an open question.
Haiti Couleurs is the sentimental pick and, for Rebecca Curtis, the potentially historic one. He won the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse and the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow in 2025, and is now looking to add the Grand National to his roll of honour.
He was pulled up in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham, which prompted a market drift, but Curtis has been clear that Aintree was always the main target.
The Verdict
I Am Maximus is a remarkable horse with a fantastic record at Aintree. If he turns up anything like his best self, he is capable of winning this race for a second time, and that version of events is entirely plausible.
But the betting market is pricing him as though his winter form did not happen, and a 15/2 favourite who has not been firing on all cylinders is asking punters to take a lot on faith.
