Hereford Racetrack In Ground Staff Awards

Congratulations are due to the hard-working ground staff at Hereford Racecourse for being named as runners-up in the National Hunt section of the 11th annual Ground Staff of the Year awards.

The awards are for the ground staff of Britain's 59 racecourses that produce consistently high quality racing conditions.

The vagaries of the British weather do not make it easy to provide almost perfect racing ground, so it's a grand achievement by Head Groundsman Jeff Green and his team, overseen by Clerk of the Course Gemma Charrington.

They'll be in action again leading up to this weekend when the racecourse holds its first Sunday fixture of 2007 - a family fun day including children's karaoke courtesy of Classic Hits radio.

The highest class race is the second on the card, the European Breeders' Fund Mares' Only 'National Hunt' Novices Hurdle Qualifier, but the most valuable of the afternoon is the 'marathon' Connolly's Red Mills Herefordshire Handicap Chase over just a couple of hundred yards short of four miles.

Another long race is the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday 14 April, the entries for which have been announced. There are four potential runners from Herefordshire among the initial 119 horses.

King Caple trainer Venetia Williams leads the way with two good prospects.

Nil Desperandum was fourth at Liverpool last spring, and goes there with a big chance as he's a horse that likes the spruce fences. The Outlier won Haydock Park's Peter Marsh Chase last month.

Both of those horses hold entries in Haydock's Red Square Vodka Gold Cup and Kempton Park's Racing Post Chase later this month.

Venetia's third entry for Aintree is Sonevafushi, whose only race so far this season was when winning a hunter chase at Wincanton a week ago.

The county's quartet is completed by Michael Scudamore's Espoir Du Bocage, a 12-year-old that's never run in Britain.

As for odds, Nil Desperandum is currently 25-1 and The Outlier 40-1. Sonevafushi is 100-1, while 500-1 can be obtained about Espoir Du Bocage.

The Grand National is Nil Desperandum's target race. If he gets to April safely - and the race is still nine weeks away - then those odds of 25-1 should certainly halve.