TED WALSH FACES a busy day at Aintree.

The well-known trainer and TV pundit sees his daughter bid to become the first winner of the Grand National on his own horse, the much-fancied Seabass.

While his son Ruby goes on one of the other race favourites, the Willie Mullins-trained On His Own.

But the family are just hoping everyone comes through the big race unscathed today, first and foremost. Especially in the wake of the death of Battlefront earlier this week at the festival, in the first race over Grand National fences.

“Battlefront got a heart attack,” confirmed Ted Walsh on RTÉ radio earlier. “He jumped Beecher’s very, very well and and then he faced down to the next and Katie felt him dropping back a bit.  And then he jumped the next and then she figured there was something wrong and she eased him back and missed the next fence on him.

“And just as she was pulling him up she found him getting a bit wobbly so she just jumped off him as you’d normally do, with something wrong. And he just staggered around and dropped down with a heart attack.”

He continued: “It’s no different to anything, if you drop dead you drop dead. There’s nothing you can do about that.

“It has nothing to do with the race. He could have dropped dead coming over the in the box on the ferry.  He could have dropped  dead walking around in the yard.  [There's] young lads playing football drop dead, people drop dead. It’s just you’re picked out to drop dead.

“It’s like the fella at the wedding, he spoils the day. But you could have dropped dead a week later and it would still be very sad but it wouldn’t cause as much commotion,” he told Marian Finucane.

Battlefront’s death was the first of the week; Little Josh was put down yesterday after a fall.

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