The 2024 Scottish Grand National took place at Ayr Racecourse on April 20, 2024, just one week after the Grand National itself, and was dominated, as were many major races on both sides of the Irish Sea during the 2023/24 National Hunt season, by County Carlow trainer Willie Mullins. Fresh from his second Grand National victory, with I Am Maximus, the Closutton maestro was mob-handed at Ayr, with six entries, as he sought to become the first Irishman since Vincent O’Brien, in 1954, to win the British jump trainers’ title.
Favourite at the off was Mr. Vango, trained by Sara Bradstock, who was pulled up before the final fence, having reportedly been unsuited by the going, officially described as ‘soft, good to soft in places’. Two of the Mullins-trained sextet, second favourite Mr. Incredible, ridden by Patrick Mullins, and 25/1 chance We’llhavewon, ridden by Kieran Callaghan, made it no further than the first fence, the former pulling himself up after a hundred yards and the latter making a mistake and unseating rider at the obstacle itself.
Nevertheless, Mullins still managed to saddle four of the first six horses home. Victory went to the stable third-string, Macdermott, ridden by his nephew, Danny Mullins, who just edged out Surrey Quest, trained by Toby Lawes and ridden by Kevin Brogan, in a driving finish to win by the minimum margin, a nose. The pair pulled four-and-a-half lengths clear of third-favourite Git Maker, with the three remaining Mullins-trained runners, Klarc Kent, Ontheropes and Spanish Harlem close behind in fourth, fifth and sixth places. Interestingly, Macdermott became the first six-year-old to win the Scottish Grand National since Earth Summit, trained by Nigel-Twiston Davies, in 1994; the latter went on to win the Welsh Grand National, in 1997, and the Grand National proper, on 1998.
Coming, as it did, just a week before conclusion of the National Hunt season, Mullins’ prize money haul gave him the upper hand in the trainers’ championship, which he would eventually win. However, Mullins was happy to stay in the present, saying, “I am delighted Danny did it, it’s fantastic. Bit to go yet, but we are involved in it [the trainers’ championship] and it looks very good.”