PARIS PIKE, who had his final tune-up for this afternoon's Scottish Grand National with a jog along the shore at Redcar beach on Wednesday, has a golden opportunity to record his second success in the Ayr showpiece, writes Colin Woods.

"He's as fresh as paint after his visit to the seaside," declared Ferdy Murphy, responsible for producing the gelding in perfect nick to claim the 2000 running of the £100,000 four-mile-one-furlong marathon.

It was a glorious victory for Paris Pike, although not long after the race the win was somewhat marred by the discovery of a minor tendon injury.

Given a year off to recover, the Ivan Straker-owned ten-year-old has since taken time to recapture his old sparkle. Not least because of the unrelentingly wet winter which consistently produced unsuitable soft ground.

Thankfully the grim weather has given way to an unusually dry spring and as a result it sparked a massive public gamble on Paris Pike in the Aintree National a fortnight ago.

But punters' dreams of a bumper pay-day turned to dust as the heavily-backed 10-1 shot clearly hadn't read the script and promptly hit the deck at the very first fence.

Phlegmatic Ferdy was typically philosophical about the unfortunate turn of events, however rather significantly Richard Guest has been replaced in the saddle by J P McNamara.

Perhaps the classic irony was that up until that moment Paris Pike had never fallen in his life. "I told Richard he normally jumps carefully over the first couple of fences before getting into a rhythm. Instead he did the opposite and let fly, stood outside the wings, overjumped, and knuckled on landing," reported Murphy.

"My fellow jumps and stays well, we will be winding it up on the final circuit to make it a true test,'' he added.