Jacob to ride Pineau De Re

Daryl Jacob is set to ride Pineau De Re in the Crabbie’s Grand National at Aintree a week on Saturday, according to John Provan.

Pineau De Re is looking to make it back-to-back victories at the showpiece event, following on from victory under Leighton Aspell 12 months ago.

However, Aspell is set to partner Many Clouds this year and Jacob has been called on to step in and go in hunt of the victory.

Jacob, who won the Grand National aboard the Paul Nicholls-trained Neptune Collonges three years ago, has been backed by Provan, who feels he has more than enough experience.

Provan said: “We spoke to Leighton on Saturday and he’s going to ride Many Clouds, so we’ve booked Daryl Jacob to ride our horse.

“Daryl is a top-class jockey and was Richard’s main rider until he got the big job with Paul Nicholls a while back.

“We then used Sam Twiston-Davies quite a lot until Paul Nicholls also spotted him and Sam replaced Daryl.

“We’ve always thought a lot of Daryl and he’s a Grand National-winning jockey. He has plenty of experience riding in the race, which counts for a lot.

“Daryl will come and school the horse this week and we’ll see if he can go and win back-to-back Grand Nationals, which would be quite an achievement.”