Still only a nine-year-old, I Am Maximus has already run in the Grand National twice, winning by 7½ lengths in 2024 and failing by just 2½ lengths to defy top weight of 11st 12lb in 2025, when outpointed by his stable companion Nick Rockett on the run-in. Victory in 2025 would have made him just the second horse in 186 years to win the Grand National more than once and he is, once again, towards the forefront of the ante-post betting for the 2026 renewal, currently quoted at 20/1 co-favourite of three.
I Am Maximus is owned by John P. McManus and trained by Willie Mullins, both of whom are seeking their fourth win in the Grand National, record-breaking and record-equalling, respectively. As such, while he is already rated 170 and the handicapper will, no doubt, take his latest Aintree form into account when the weights for the Grand National are published in February, he remains one to take very seriously indeed.
The winner of the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse in 2023, as a seven-year-old, I Am Maximus has spent much of his subsequent career – away from Aintree, that is – competing at Grade 1 level against his more illustrious stable companions Galopin Des Champs and Gaelic Warrior. Reflecting on his defeat in the 2025 Grand National, jockey Paul Townend said, “He ran a huge race. Maybe he’d enjoy a bit more ease in the ground, but I can’t have any excuses really. It was just too hard off of topweight.”
It’s worth noting that I Am Maximus has won four times over fences, all on soft or heavy going, although he did win on good to soft over hurdles and lost little caste in defeat on a similar surface in the 2025 Grand National. Underfoot conditions aside, I Am Maximus may need some assistance from Martin Greenwood, the staying chase handicapper at the British Horseracing Authroity (BHA), if he is to win the Grand National again. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the highest-rated Grand National was Many Clouds, rated 160, in 2015.