It may be the flat racing season, but that doesn’t mean Yorkshire’s jump training yards are quiet.
The traditional National Hunt training centres such as Middleham and Malton are gearing up for the summer jump season, highlighted by the marquee Summer Cup and Summer Plate events.
These races are key to getting horses qualified for the country’s biggest horse race, the Grand National. The Summer Cup, held at Uttoxeter, can meet the distance requirement for the top four finishers, as well as giving the winner a healthy handicap bump. The Summer Plate at Market Rasen is equally important for proving that a horse can handle the din of Aintree.
Should any Yorkshire-trained horse make it to the 2027 Grand National, though, they’ll be faced with one of the all-time greats in I Am Maximus.
Owned by JP McManus and trained by Willie Mullins, I Am Maximus is beloved by the crowd and considered one of the greatest Grand National runners of all time. He has two wins and a second place to his name already, and is the early favourite to collect a record-equalling third win in 2027.
Should I Am Maximus beat out the field again, conversations will rightly start about where he falls in the list of greatest British jump horses.
Mutli-year dominance at Aintree
I Am Maximus came into his first Grand National in 2024 among the horses to beat, and set off as the 7/1 joint favourite. He’d already proven his speed and endurance over a long distance by winning the 2023 Irish Grand National, and showed off his dominance at the 2024 Bobbyjo Chase after winning by 14 lengths.
In the end, I Am Maximus won his first Grand National by 7½ lengths. There was chatter that I Am Maximus had too low of a handicap, with the weights set before his demolition job in the Bobbyjo Chase. In 2025, he found himself saddled with the maximum weight of 11st 12lb, and the increase was enough to see I Am Maximus limited to second place, two and a half lengths behind stable mate Nick Rockett.
Some trainers and owners would see this as a sign that the horse’s time as a Grand National winner was over. Not Mullins and McManus, though. They put the hard work in over the winter, and when the Grand National rolled around again in 2026, I Am Maximus claimed his second victory.
The win made him the first horse to win while carrying the top weight since the legendary Red Rum in 1974. This is mighty company to be in, and if I Am Maximus can pull off a third victory in 2027, the parallels will draw ever closer.
Comparisons ready to all-time great Red Rum
There is no horse in British racing more legendary than Red Rum. With three Grand National victories to his name, plus two second places, no horse has bewitched the public quite as much. His legacy was sealed with his final win in 1977, when unfancied at 12 years old he stormed away from the field to win by an unfathomable 25 lengths.
If I Am Maximus can pull alongside Red Rum in victories, there will at least be a conversation to be had about who the all-time greatest is. Certainly it’ll move I Am Maximus ahead of other modern contenders such as Tiger Roll. After winning his first two races handsomely in 2018 and 2019, the cancelled 2020 event plus handicap disputes in 2021 and 2022 stopped Tiger Roll from furthering his record.
For many, Red Rum will forever be the greatest of all time. The manner of his victories, and the brutal fences from the era he raced in, will likely keep him top in the hearts and minds of racing fans. Still, for I Am Maximus to even force a conversation is an achievement in itself.
