Grand National co-favourite Any Second Now counting down the minutes to Aintree

Any Second Now is all set for Aintree and will have two runs before attempting to land the Randox Grand National.

The JP McManus-owned stayer was third in last year's National and has been cut to 16-1 joint-favourite with William Hill for the marathon chase at Aintree on April 9.

Trainer Ted Walsh is targeting the 10-year-old at the four-and-a-quarter-mile Merseyside showpiece, which is returning to its pre-pandemic purse of £1million and will be run in front of an estimated 70,000 full house, having not been staged in 2019 and run behind closed doors last year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Any Second Now is set to tread a similar path as last year, following a ninth in a two-and-a-half-mile Navan handicap hurdle in mid-December.

Walsh said: "All is good with him. He is in good form. He will have a couple of runs between now and the National. I want to get two runs into him at least.

"We will look at a race at the Goffs Thyestes meeting at Gowran at the end of the month and possibly the Webster Cup at Navan again (which he won last year), but he will certainly have a couple of runs beforehand."