Behind the names: background stories to the 2020 Virtual Grand National field

With once-a-year punters often making their Grand National selections based on a particular name, Mark Boylan finds out the stories behind some of this year's Virtual Grand National field

Your eyes are not deceiving you, Brian Ellison's leading chance Definitly Red is spelled incorrectly, an error his former connections were well aware of while registering him.

Brian Hamilton, who trained the four-time Grade 2 winner to land a Loughanmore point-to-point in October 2013, explained: "The syndicate members bought him for a bit of craic at the Land Rover Sale and we were out together in the Chinese one night deciding what we'd call him.

"In the end, the five of us wrote down a name and put it into a hat. The slip of paper name that came out was Definitly Red, which one of the syndicate members had got from his pedigree, being by Definite Article and out of The Red Wench."

He added: "There had been drink taken and a question arose as to how the word definitely is spelled. In the end, the guy who wrote down the name initially spelled it wrong and we just stuck with it in the end for luck rather than changing it."

The right type for the National: Vintage Clouds (Danny Cook) jumps to success at Haydock last NovemberCredit: Grossick Racing

Courageous Aintree legend Tiger Roll gets his name from his mother, who is called Swiss Roll, a mare with similar physical traits to Gordon Elliott's pintsized hero. Similarly, Vintage Clouds gets his name from his parents, Cloudings (sire) and Rare Vintage (dam).

The naming process behind 2018 Coral Welsh National winner Elegant Escape was not based around pedigree but instead an entertaining anecdote.

Joe Tizzard, son of trainer Colin Tizzard, previously revealed that as a young horse in Ireland, Elegant Escape fled his stable and galloped roughly three miles down the road before a group of gypsies proceeded to jump gates with him on an old railway track - an elegant escape of sorts.

Gerry McGrath, breeder and former owner of Jessica Harrington's Jett, starts all the names of his horses with the letter J, which stands for 'jet black' in honour of the mare who kick-started his Athdara Stud, La Noire ('The Black' in French).

Jett: will make his first start in the colours of Robert Waley-Cohen in the Virtual Grand NationalCredit: Caroline Norris

The mare in question, who was given as a gift to McGrath from his father, is the dam of 2020 Virtual Grand National hopeful Jett as well as Champion Hurdle star Jezki and other classy performers.

Fans of the 1990 American sci-fi film Total Recall will be hoping the horse, who shares a name with the movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, can provide a box office performance on Saturday, while western enthusiasts can side with Nicky Henderson's Ok Corral, surely named after the 1957 movie Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Bryony Frost's Virtual Grand National mount is Yala Enki, a name that can be interpreted as meaning Let's Go (Yala) Lord of the Earth (Enki). Tout Est Permis, trained by Noel Meade, translates from French to 'everything is allowed'.

Ballyoptic and Sam Twiston-Davies clear the last en route to victory in the Listed Keltbray Swinley Chase at AscotCredit: Edward Whitaker

Nigel and Sam Twiston Davies team up with impressive Ascot winner Ballyoptic, a horse thought to be named after an Irish place.

Ian Ferguson, who trained the 25-1 chance to win a Kirkistown point-to-point in 2015, explained: "As far as I'm aware Ballyoptic was the last foal by Old Vic to be born.

"Wilson [Dennison, former owner of Ballyoptic and Kildisart] likes to name plenty of his horses after place names, especially ones that begin with Bally and end in Hill. He must have gotten the name Ballyoptic from somewhere he'd been here in Ireland."

Virginia Considine, who trained Double Shuffle early on in his career, added of his naming: "An old friend of my husband Dermot used to play cards and, very simply, the name comes from the way of shuffling the deck for card games."

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