Something has been nagging at anyone who has spent the past few months working through the form of Grand National contenders. Horse after horse carries a preparation run that looks terrible on paper. Pulled ups. Last of six. Distant fifths on ground described as heavy. Trainer quotes about the going being all wrong.

It is easy to dismiss each case individually, to file it under “had a bad day” and move on. But when you step back and look at the whole picture, a pattern emerges that is hard to ignore.

This has not been a normal winter. And it has not produced normal form.

Hidden Trend – One of the Wettest Winters Since Records Began

The numbers from the Met Office tell you everything you need to know. Winter 2025/26 was England’s eighth wettest since records began in 1836. Southern England recorded its fourth wettest winter, its worst in over a decade.

The West Midlands, Cornwall, and Leicestershire all recorded their wettest winter on record. England as a whole finished the season with 42% more rainfall than its long-term average.

The research station at Invergowrie in Scotland reported its second wettest winter since records began there in 1954. January alone brought rainfall at 201% of the long-term average. February came in at 220%.

The rain did not arrive in dramatic deluges that drain away quickly. It fell slowly, steadily, week after week, saturating ground that had nowhere left to drain.

Ireland was no different. Limerick was forced to cancel a fixture in January after 12mm of rain overnight landed on top of 84mm that had already fallen in the preceding fortnight. Fairyhouse followed in February, waterlogged and unfit.

Clonmel’s chase course was rendered unraceable. The interruptions were not isolated incidents; they were symptoms of a season in which the ground across the National Hunt heartlands was rarely anything other than heavy or unraceable from December through to March.

What Bottomless Ground Does to a Horse’s Form

There is a particular type of horse that wins the Grand National. The most common winner profile is a horse who is versatile, capable on a range of going, with the stamina to stay four miles and the jumping technique to handle Aintree’s unique obstacles.

Many of those horses, precisely because they are good jumpers with efficient actions, do not enjoy bottomless ground. It does not suit them, and when you force them to run in it, the form they show is not a fair reflection of what they can actually do.

Look down the list of 2026 Grand National entries, and you will find this winter’s fingerprints everywhere. Horses pulled up at the Thyestes on heavy ground. Horses sent back over hurdles when trainers could not find a suitable chasing opportunity on acceptable going. Horses who ran perfectly respectable races in November on good ground, then found themselves with nothing to run in when December, January, and February turned the whole calendar into a lottery.

The Grand National field this year contains more horses with a single black mark on their recent form than you would normally expect, and in most cases the explanation is the same: the ground was simply unraceable for them.