Henderson thinks that this is his best chance of winning a Grand National

The Grand National 2014 is upon us and Nicky Henderson has four runners in Saturday’s race and thinks that this will be his best chance of winning Britain’s favourite race.

Shakalaka boomboom Long Run, Hunt Ball and Triolo D'Alene will all be running this weekend at Aintree to give trainer Henderson four shots at winning.

"It's probably more realistic than it's been before,” said the 63-year-old Henderson when talking to BBC South Today.

"We've had several shots at it and been close. It's the one that's missing. We've been close enough a few times, so it would be nice to win before it's all over."

Based in Lambourn Henderson said that it was not his idea to initially enter all four horses for the 30 jump race.

"At the beginning of the season, you either know if you've got a National horse or you haven't. Funnily enough, the last few years, I could have told you before Christmas we hadn't got one," he said.

"This year, I was fairly confident there were two. Triolo D'Alene and Shakalakaboomboom were on the line. Hunt Ball, I didn't know about because he's only just come to us and Long Run, we had a change of plan around Christmas time.

"I haven't gone out to pick four because we haven't won the National before. This year, we genuinely have four National horses. They have to be the right animals for it because it is a specialist race and they have to be suitable."

During his career as a trainer Henderson has won the sport’s biggest races the Hennessy Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, King George VI Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup

"The Grand National is completely different as you are asking the horse a different question," he said.

"First and foremost, I want them all home safe and sound. They have modified it (the course) quite considerably and it is very different race and much safer, but one is always aware of the difficulty of it and that is why one has to pick the right horse."

According to the bookies Henderson’s best bet to win is Long Run, a horse that won the 2011 Cheltenham Gold Cup, and also won last time out at Kelso when ridden by Sam Waley-Cohen.

"With Long Run, at Christmas we decided we would take the Grand National route, rather the Gold Cup route. The Gold Cup turned out to be quite a rather odd race, so I kind of regret we didn't run Long Run in it because of the way it finished," added Henderson.

"We decided to keep him cherry ripe for this. He ran well at Kelso, he's schooled very well, he's had a practice over Aintree type obstacles and he's been very good."