MOTHER AND DAUGHTER DOUBLE ACT FIT FOR THE MOVIES

GEoRGIE HoWELL sums up the Randox Grand National challenge of Sub Lieutenant perfectly when she says: ‘It’s very National Velvet! You never believe these things are going to happen.’ Howell references the 1944 MGM movie when schoolgirl Velvet Brown, played by Elizabeth Taylor, prepares a wild but talented horse for the world’s best-known steeplechase aided by Mickey Rooney’s washed-up former jockey. The script Howell is working to is less outlandish but still unlikely. If Sub Lieutenant does win, it would be Howell’s first success as a Permit Holder which means she can only train her own horses, something she does alongside running an engineering business. The 12-year-old is the stand-out talent at Howell’s Worcestershire stable and to complete the story, Sub Lieutenant will be ridden by Howell’s 26-year-old jockey daughter Tabitha Worsley. When previously trained by Gordon Elliott, Sub Lieutenant twice won at Grade Two level and finished second to Un De Sceaux in the Ryanair Chase at the 2017 Cheltenham Festival. Howell said: ‘We normally buy very ordinary, cheap horses. I said we need to buy ourselves a better horse so Tabitha gets to ride in some better races. We were never thinking of the National in a million years.’ lSCoTTISH trainer Lucinda Russell excelled at Aintree yesterday by winning the Grade one Doom Bar Sefton Novices’ Hurdle with 66-1 outsider Ahoy Senor. Ridden by Derek Fox, who was also on board for the yard on 2017 National winner one For Arthur, beat warm favourite Bravemansgame by seven lengths.