Female trainers have won five of the last ten renewals of Haydock’s Unibet Grand National Trial and indeed six of the last 12 if you include the training partnership of the late great Robert Alner and his wife Sally, who saddled Miko De Beauchene to land this pot just six weeks after taking the Coral Welsh Grand National at Chepstow.

Lucinda Russell sent out Silver By Nature to land back-to-back renewals in 2010 and 2011 and again tasted victory with Lie Forrit in 2015. The Kinross-based operator may saddle 2018 Randox Health Grand National hero One For Arthur on Saturday and his fifth-placed finish in December’s Becher Chase provides sufficient reason to believe that he could be a factor.

Venetia Williams has also won the Haydock feature twice and although the Grand National-winning trainer won’t have her own representative this year, the horse she sent out to victory in 2018, namely Yala Enki, will turn out for champion trainer Paul Nicholls.

The master of Ditcheat is also responsible for ante-post favourite Truckers Lodge, who was only a length ahead of his new stablemate when placing second in this year's Welsh National over Christmas.

Yala Enki will have a 4lbs pull at the weights and earned a confidence-boosting success at Taunton last month. He would compete from an 11lbs higher mark than when successful in 2018 on Saturday but does love the mud and obviously handles Haydock, which is clearly advantageous.