” are you trying to argue Johnnywho is a graded horse , I’d say thats unrealistic”
I never said that, I’m just saying that in the here and now he’s well in for a race in 4 weeks time.
“what was the actual last handicapper to win it”
Corach Rambler was a handicapper when he won. Beat Vanillier 2 and a bit lengths, that wasn’t graded form, he was a well handicapped handicapper at the time. He happened to improve the season after to finish 3rd in the Gold Cup. And as a ‘graded level’ horse he didn’t get close to repeating his National success, he had it do 13 pounds higher.
The Grand National is still a handicap and the winner needs to have something in hand and stay the trip whichever races they’ve been running in that season, whether it’s graded races or competitive handicaps. And one of those could be Johnnywho. He may well get 7 or 8 pounds for his Ultima win but can run off his old mark.
I’m not convinced so far that every horse that wins Nationals from now on has to be a graded horse that season, there hasn’t been enough runnings of them yet since Corach’s win for me to come to that conclusion.