Top Of The Bill – Can Ginger McCain’s Grandson Emulate Red Rum and win the 2026 Grand National
The market had him at 125/1, now down to 66/1, and he carries a light weight. Nigel Twiston-Davies has won this race twice before, and his horse just ran second in the dedicated Grand National Trial at Haydock.
Top Of The Bill has no previous Grand National experience, and the market has clearly decided he faces a steep ask. That is not an unreasonable position.
But it is worth taking a moment to look at what he has actually done!
Six weeks before the Grand National, Top Of The Bill ran in the William Hill Grand National Trial at Haydock, specifically designed as a prep race for Aintree, over three miles and four and a half furlongs. He finished second.
Nigel Twiston-Davies knows what a Grand National winner looks like. He trained Earth Summit to win in 1998 and Bindaree in 2002. He has had runners in this race for three decades.
There are worse starting points.
A Horse Who Has Made Haydock His Home
Top Of The Bill has spent much of his career doing his best work at Haydock Park.
He won there in November 2025, leading virtually throughout at 18/1, carrying a big weight in the race and beating a competitive handicap field by seven lengths.
It was a front-running performance that suggested a horse very much in his element on the track and over the trip.
He then ran at Haydock again in December and finished ninth on soft ground, a run he was disappointing in but one that looked more like conditions finding him out than any underlying problem.
Then came February, and the Grand National Trial.
The race commentary from that run is worth reading carefully. He raced prominently, disputed the lead for much of the contest, made a bad mistake at the eighteenth fence that cost him momentum, was briefly outpaced before three out, and then rallied back into second after the second last, keeping on well all the way to the flat without quite reaching the winner Grand Geste. He never stopped trying.
At 22/1, carrying near top weight in a race built specifically to prepare horses for Aintree, finishing second is not a performance to dismiss lightly. The form is there.
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A Consistent Record in the Right Kind of Races
It is easy to look at a 66/1 price and assume the horse has nothing to recommend him. The chase record tells a different story.
Twelve starts over fences, five wins, a second, and two thirds. That is eight finishes in the first three from twelve attempts, which is a solid return by anyone’s measure, even accounting for the fact that the competition has not always been at the very highest level.
He wins when conditions suit him, places when they do not, and he has shown across multiple seasons that he is the kind of consistent, reliable stayer that can find his way around a big-field handicap when the race falls right.
The Grand National is, at its heart, a big-field handicap over an extreme distance. Top Of The Bill has been winning and placing in those kinds of races for several years.
Does He Fit the Grand National Winner’s Profile?
At ten years old, Top Of The Bill sits at the outer limit of the ideal age range, though winners have come from this bracket, and a fit, well-placed ten-year-old is by no means a spent force.
The question at this age is always condition rather than ability, and the evidence from Haydock in February suggests a horse that is in good nick.
His weight of 10st 5lb is where things become genuinely interesting. That is a lightweight in this race, sitting at the lower end of the range that has historically produced winners, but it means he can travel through the field without being burdened.
The 66/1 Case
At 66/1, Top Of The Bill is not a horse you back expecting to win. But the Grand National Trial second in February is real form at the right trip, and a horse who finishes second under near top weight in a race designed to find National contenders cannot be entirely written off, whatever price the market attaches to him.
Twiston-Davies does not send horses to Aintree for the sake of it. He has been here before, he knows what it requires, and if he believes Top Of The Bill belongs in this field after what he saw at Haydock, that view deserves at least some consideration.
At 66/1, a very small each-way interest is the only sensible framing. If the jumping holds up and the light weight gives him something to work with in the closing stages, the Twiston-Davies name has a habit of cropping up in this race at prices that seemed generous in hindsight.
More importantly than all of that, he will be ridden by Toby McCain-Mitchell, nephew to Donald McCain Jr and grandson to the great Ginger McCain, trainer of Red Rum.
And just in case he needed an extra bit of luck, Toby will be riding with a lock of Red Rum’s hair in his glove. What a fairytale if he comes home as the winner!
