Mr Vango holds on to win Midlands Grand National

Mr Vango was the winner of the Peter Marsh Chase at Haydock

Mr Vango held on to claim an emotional victory for Sara Bradstock in the Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter.

Mr Vango, ridden by Jack Tudor, led early on and was at or near the front throughout the four and a quarter mile 25-fence race.

The top-weighted nine-year-old, who was 11-1 in the odds, then built up a lead after the penultimate fence to win by three lengths from Venetia Williams' Tanganyika.

Jamie Snowden's Passing Well came third of the 16 horses, with Emma Lavelle's My Silver Lining fourth, after Welsh Grand National winner Val Dancer withdrew on the morning of the race.

Mr Vango's victory was his third straight win after the London National at Sandown Park in December and the Peter Marsh at Haydock Park in January.

"He's great fun and a great jumper," Welsh jockey Tudor told BBC Sport. "This is right up there with everything I've done in my career to date."

It earned Oxfordshire-based trainer Bradstock her biggest win since taking over the licence from her late husband Mark a year ago.

"This has always been a race I've admired as you need such stamina and guts to win it," she said. "It's a very sad but very special day.

"It breaks my heart that Mark's not here. It really cheered him when this horse won just before he died.

"But Mark wanted me to go on and it's moments like this that make you realise it's worth all the effort and heartache."

Aintree 2026 the target for Mr Vango

There was a near-capacity 10,000 crowd at the Staffordshire course for the 54th running of the annual Midlands postscript to Cheltenham week.

And they witnessed as exciting a finish as there has been in a race that has produced two previous Cheltenham Gold Cup winners - The Thinker and Synchronised - and 1976 Grand National winner Rag Trade.

The Bradstocks had previously produced a Gold Cup winner from their small yard near Wantage - Coneygree - 10 years ago almost to the day.

But, having trained her horse to win the second longest race in the country, Bradstock will have to wait for a crack at Aintree as, although entered for this year's running on 5 April, he will not be high up enough in the handicap ratings to make it into the 34-horse field.

"I would so love to see him go over the Grand National fences at Aintree. That's the dream," she told BBC Sport. "But he doesn't qualify. He's out of the handicaps.

"But that will now be an obvious target for next year. He's such a stayer, he's got such stamina. He just keeps on going.

"We all joke about the fact that he's actually rather slow so it's just a question of making it from post to post - and he keeps on and on and on."