BRACE FOR A SHARKNADO

A HORSE and a Shark walk into a bar...to start the party for winning Aintree's €1.18m Randox Grand National!

- MELISSA JONES

That is how trainer John Hanlon - nicknamed after the dangerous fish with sharp teeth - hopes it will go anyway.

As do the punting masses holding 66-1 vouchers for his pint-sized horse Hewick, so popular he could even go off favourite when the tapes rise.

"The price of a cow" at €943, Shark's steed once dipped his whiskers into a cold Irish Guinness on his American National home-coming.

And The Pint Depot boozer in Carlow will be well and truly rocking if - two-and-a-half-years on from his heroics at Far Hills in New Jersey - the winner of €884,000 has the last laugh in Liverpool.

"An awful lot of locals have backed Hewick at 66-1," said Shark, his adopted title dating back to his teens as a hurler.

"There will be some party if he wins. People have really taken to him because he cost small money and they love to see the underdog do well."