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Eight of the 40 declared runners in the 2010 Grand National were bred in France.
The two topweights Madison du Berlais and Mon Mome are French products.
Mon Mome began his career at Pontivy and took ten tries in Britain before becoming a winner: Madison du Berlais was claimed from Guillaume Macaire at Auteuil and has gone on to better things with the Pipes.
Some said what was the point of running Mon Mome (Fr) in the Grand National last year? A French-bred steeplechaser hadn’t won the world famous race for a century; he started at 100-1; and his stable’s jockey chose another runner.
French relations have been fostered by Mon Mome, twelve-length 2009 National hero, and so many other imports but civil war may have broken out if Fergus Wilson Britain’s most eccentric and passionate racehorse owner, had been denied a run with his Cerium (Fr).
Wilson’s horses have a habit of finishing last in the top races but Cerium by Vaguely Pleasant defied odds of 125-1 and excelled himself coming home fifth to Mon Mome.
But his rating hasn’t risen and whereas he slipped in on bottom weight last year, he looked like missing out as a mere reserve this time.
Yet Fergus Wilson took out his other runner, Mr Pointment, and another absetee allowed Cerium to join the run.
Last year Cerium was kicked by a faller; Wilson often gets slandered as cracked in the head but it was his horse who suffered a fractured skull.
Wilson, a 60-year-old multi-millionaire property dealer who sat alongside the Beckhams in the country’s rich list until the property crash (and ‘Posh’ Becks’ new perfume line took off) had a sudden inspiration in the new century: buy horses in France who were past their sell-by date but still had high enough ratings to qualify for the National, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle – the races he had ambitions to win since childhood.
The British establishment - authorities and media - were infuriated at Wilson’s finesse: the market for French-breds with potential was taking off and here was somebody throwing a spanner in the works, buying cheap and flying high.
Wilson wasn’t fazed that his horses were tailed off – Mr Pointment and Cerium were 8th and tenth (last) in this year’s Gold Cup – Cerium only beaten 61 lengths, three lengths nearer than he finished in 2009.
But leading Irish jockey Davey Russell was impressed enough to ask for the ride again in the National.
None of this tallies with Wilson’s acute business philosophy (he and his wife Judith, in whose name the horses run, were once maths teachers) or the amounts he used to pay out for racing pigeons (he won the feathered friends ‘Grand National’) - way above what his racehorses cost.
But how do you apply logic to someone who’s runner in New Approach’s Derby, Maidstone Mixture (finished last) having warmed up by winning a hurdle at Strasbourg when trained by Richard Chotard?
Cerium began his career in more distinguished company than Mon Mome or Madison du Berlais, finishing second to Balko for J-P Totain in the Wild Risk Hurdle.
He then went to Paul Nicholls for a king’s ransom before moving on to Wilson for very little ransom at all.
Though a true Brit, Wilson is first and foremost an outspoken maverick.
“French trainers should get the guillotine out and decapitate the English handicapper who goes out of his way to ensure that French horses do not get a run and the National is won by a British or Irish-bred.
“When I purchase a horse from France I first check the rating with the English handicapper to ensure it will have a rating high enough to get a run. However, when I’ve concluded the purchase the handicapper lowers the rating ‘to give it a chance’!
“He gives it such a ‘good chance’ that it will not get a run.”
“My idea sprung from the failure of Amberleigh House to be rated high enough to get a run for the 2002 the National even though he’d been good enough over the Aintree fences to win the Becher Chase.”
Here Wilson might have added that Amberleigh House started at 150-1 in his first National attempt – he won it of course two years later.
Before the declarations were presented on Thursday Wilson said: “Frenchmen should not let the heart rule the mind but if they have a heart it should be devoted to Cerium on 10th April.”
He thundered: “The English are still fighting the war of Joan of Arc and Napoleon. The English do not forgive the French! The English do not play on an even playing field! The Treaty of Rome is ignored.
“We intend to enter him for the Grand Steeplechase de Paris.
“I ask French journalists whether Cerium would be fairly treated in France and not treated in the way that the English treat French horses?”
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Frogwatch, by Rolf Johnson 
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