I Am Maximus, the easy winner of last year’s Grand National, will need to emulate a feat last achieved by the mighty Red Rum if he is to double up at Aintree on 5 April after he was allotted top weight of 11st 12lb when the handicap for the world’s most famous steeplechase was published on Tuesday.
Grand National 2025: I Am Maximus must emulate Red Rum to win Aintree double Last year’s winner allotted top weight of 11st 12lb at handicap announcement for May race at Aintree.
Red Rum, who is buried next to the winning post at Aintree, is most familiar to the British sporting public as the only horse ever to win the Grand National three times, but he was also the last horse to carry top weight to victory, when he won for the second time – under what was then the maximum burden of 12st – in 1974.
Fifty-one years later, I Am Maximus must defy a similar burden if he is to become only the seventh horse in the race’s 186-year history to win a second Aintree National, but the positive news for his supporters – he is the early 12-1 second-favourite – is that a modern National offers a somewhat different challenge to the one that faced Red Rum in the 1970s.
The top three horses in the early National betting all carry the green and gold colours of JP McManus, as Gavin Cromwell’s Inothewayurthinkin, fourth home in the Irish Gold Cup earlier this month and set to carry 11st 5lb, is priced up at 10-1, while Iroko, from Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero’s stable in Cheshire, is the first British-trained runner in the lists at 14-1.
