sport news Trainer Lucinda Russell and partner Peter Scudamore stick with winning formula ... trends now

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Reset and repeat. That has been the mantra for trainer Lucinda Russell and partner Peter Scudamore since they decided to return to Aintree with last year’s Randox Grand National winner Corach Rambler.

Work routines have been a carbon copy of what worked so well 12 months ago when the Derek Fox-ridden 8-1 favourite won with more in hand than the two-and-a-quarter-length margin suggests.

Why change a winning formula, the duo argue.

Russell said: ‘Literally we have got the work diary from last year and have been cribbing from it so he has done exactly the same. The only thing that has been different is that the gallops have been a bit deeper because of all the rain.’

The only other change for a gelding who thrives when the warmer spring weather arrives was that after being saved during the darkest winter months he reappeared in last month’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, rather than trying to win the meeting’s Ultima Chase for the third year running.

Corach Rambler’s third place to Galopin Des Champs there only served to underline that this is a steeplechaser in his prime.

The BHA handicapper, who has to frame the weights for this afternoon’s £1million marathon way before the Cheltenham Festival, certainly thinks so. If he could do them again, he would give Corach Rambler an extra 3lb to carry.

Scudamore said: ‘People ask was the Gold Cup too hard a race for him ahead of the Grand National? The honest answer is I don’t know but you get gut feelings about things and I always feel it is harder for horses to carry a lot of weight in a handicap than it is to run at level weights in a conditions race.

‘He hadn’t run since November. If he had hard races in between I would have been worried but he needed a tough race to bring the best of his fitness out.

‘I felt he was working well before he went to Cheltenham and he seems on the

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