The weather is always the concern leading up to the biggest day at the Welsh track and this year was no exception. With soft ground forecast a week before the frost began to set in, There was a hard frost on the night of the 26th and it stayed cold all day and the course called for an early morning inspection however the rain came on the 27th and we had a lot of rain and therefore the inspection became more of a waterlogged inspection that the frost inspection that was originally thought of. However with a good amount of sunshine forecast for the day of the 28th there was little doubt that the race would go ahead even though the going was changed to heavy, but we are used to heavy ground on Welsh National Day.
I got to the course early and that was sensible because the traffic was as bad as it had ever been and as the center of the course was not going to be opened for traffic (I assume because of the recent bad weather) there was still a good deal of traffic arriving almost 2 hours early, however as we were to lean later many had trouble getting to the course and missed some of the races. On the way home there were cars parked on the sides of the roads so I assume the official car park must have been full.
The traffic was so bad that it looked as if some horses would not make it to the course and last years winner "Bindaree" was stuck on the Severn Bridge for two hours and as it looked as if he was not going to make the course in time his trainer Nigel Twiston Davies sent Paul Flynn from the course with a saddle to go and get the horse and this he did. This resulted in the horse having to be ridden the last 2 miles to the course in order to take part in the race.
The jockey Dean Gallagher was not so lucky he did not make it in time and a stand in was found for his mount Count Campioni in the form of Andrew Tinkler.


Of course most people were unaware of these problems when the horses were in the paddock being lead around. The jockeys were taking the last instructions and the television personalities were doing their last piece to the cameras before the horses were led out.


All the horses then paraded in front of the stands and then were sent away to look at the first fence.


Carl Llewellyn however did not take Bindaree down to the first fence; this is not unusual as Carl has not taken horses to look at the fences for some time now as he says "the horse knows what a fence looks like".






However all the rest of the field were taken down to the first fence to take a look and give the jockeys time to pass good humored comments to each other.




Soon the horses were having their girths checked and it was soon time for the horses to for a line and the tapes went up. The Welsh national was underway.