INJURY AGONY FOR NATIONAL WINNER

ONE For Arthur, the Lucinda Russell-trained 2017 Grand National winner, faces a lengthy period on the sidelines with a tendon injury. The problem was detected in the eight-year-old’s off-foreleg after he stepped up work in anticipation of a return to action later this month. Russell and Peter Scudamore, her partner and assistant, will focus on a rehabilitation programme for the son of Milan that it is hoped will take him back to the 2019 Grand National. Scudamore said: ‘After the National, we monitored his legs. There was no suspicion of anything but yesterday there was heat in his leg and we had it scanned. He’d only just finished pre-season training and hadn’t really stepped up to a proper piece of work yet. It makes you feel like giving up but you have to get up and go again.’ One For Arthur, successful at Aintree under jockey Derek Fox, was Scotland’s first National winner since Rubstic in 1979. He is owned by Deborah Thomson and Belinda McLung, whose delight at winning added an extra dimension to the National result. ÷ JOCKEY Graham Gibbons has been given a two-year ban after trying to swap his urine sample with that of a colleague in December and then testing positive for cocaine.