Is Dan Skelton’s Panic Attack the mare to beat in this year’s Grand National? On bare numbers alone, you could make a very solid case that she is right at the top of the list, and on narrative, she is even more compelling!
She has taken a bit of a scenic route to becoming one of the most talked‑about names of the 2025/26 jumps season, and her current campaign has been her coming‑of‑age.
Now a ten‑year‑old, she has quietly turned into one of the most reliable chasers in training, and this season alone has won the November Gold Cup at Cheltenham and the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury, followed by a dominant Listed success at Newbury after the turn of the year.
Those wins did not arrive in flukey fashion; they were the product of neat, accurate jumping, strong travelling and a willingness to keep finding for pressure all the way to the line.
By the time she lined up at Cheltenham in March for the Mares’ Chase, she was mixing it with specialists at the very top of her division, and while she couldn’t get past defending champion Dinoblue and the high‑class Only By Night, she stuck on gamely into third.
A Season Built With Aintree In Mind
If this season feels like it’s been building to something with Panic Attack, that’s because it has.
Skelton has campaigned her in a way that ticks a lot of the traditional Grand National boxes: big‑field handicaps, demanding tracks, rising distances, and steadily increasing tests of stamina.
Her Coral Gold Cup win over 3m2f at Newbury was particularly telling, proving she stays beyond three miles and can dig deep when the race turns into a grind.
Skelton himself has spoken of his huge Aintree team being headed by Panic Attack in the Randox Grand National, and while earlier in the spring he still needed to be sure she’d get into the race, that concern has now eased with her guaranteed a spot and a racing weight that looks more than workable.
Owner Bryan Drew, profiled in the Racing Post as a man with a long‑held Grand National dream and a fondness for jump racing that he cheerfully describes as a “glorified waste of money,” has been open about how special an Aintree win with this mare would be.
The Numbers That Mark Her Out
Strip away the romance, and you’re left with cold, encouraging numbers. Timeform has Panic Attack sitting at the top of their weight‑adjusted ratings for the 2026 Grand National, ahead of some powerful Irish challengers and other progressive British stayers.
That position owes plenty to her four wins from four starts over fences since joining Skelton, and with a race weight of 10st 5lb, she looks nicely treated for a test of this nature.
She has never fallen, unseated, or pulled up in her career, and she keeps her shape and rhythm even when the pressure comes on.
Then there is the market. With her odds dropping from around 14/1 to 8/1 today, she is the second favourite behind I Am Maximus.
With Harry Skelton booked and the Skelton yard in flying form, she has already been marked out by bookmakers and punters as a serious player, not a romantic long shot.
The Skelton Factor – In The Saddle And The Yard
If you were designing a bespoke partnership for a tricky race like the National, you could do worse than pairing Dan and Harry Skelton with a seasoned, straightforward mare.
Dan has just rewritten the British jumps prize‑money record, passing Paul Nicholls’ long‑standing tally during a remarkable Cheltenham Festival, and that surge has been built on clever campaigning, shrewd placement, and horses peaking at the right time.
Harry Skelton knows Panic Attack inside out and has the kind of cool, patient style that should suit her ideally at Aintree.
Behind them stands an owner in Bryan Drew who has had big days before but is clearly dreaming of something even bigger. And maybe the Grand National is it!
What Could Stop Panic Attack?
Of course, this is the Grand National, not an end‑of‑term school prize‑giving, and there are reasons to be cautious.
The first is history. It has been 75 years since a mare last won the race, with Nickel Coin the most recent female winner back in 1951; Magic Of Light, runner‑up to Tiger Roll in 2019, is the most recent mare to have hit the frame in the past three decades.
Panic Attack would be taking on a trend that has proved stubborn, even if the overall number of mares trying their luck has been limited.
Then there is the Aintree factor itself. For all her experience and reliability, she has never run over the National fences, and no amount of school‑time can fully replicate the unique feel of Becher’s, the Canal Turn, or the famous elbowed run‑in.
Some horses love it, some hate it, and you only find out which camp you’re in when they turn for home.
There is also the question of distance; while she has won over an extended three miles two furlongs and shapes as though extreme tests suit her, this will be a new frontier at just over four miles and a quarter.
So, Is She The Mare To Beat?
When you add everything up – the form, the figures, the campaign, the rider, the yard, and the quiet sense of purpose behind her season – Panic Attack has the look of a National contender who deserves to be taken very seriously.
She brings with her a major handicap double, a proven engine at three‑plus miles, a clear round record, top billing on influential ratings, a handy weight of 10st 5lb, and the services of a jockey who knows exactly how she likes to race.
Set against that are historical trends against mares, the unknown of the Aintree fences, and the question of how she will cope with the unique cauldron of the National itself.
But if any mare is going to tilt at those statistics this year, it is the one who has spent the season quietly picking off some of jumping’s biggest staying prizes.
So yes, Panic Attack is very much the mare to beat in 2026, and she is one of our tips for the race – not because the story would be neat (though it would), but because, on the evidence of this season, she has earned that status the hard way.
BETFRED
