GRAND NATIONAL

A medium gloss story of horseracing in England where the sport of kings is losing its noble mien although it's still much more exclusive than OTB. While leading up to the great steeplechasing event, Welcome keeps his story circulating among all those involved: parvenu owner Julius Marker who hopes to be elected to the Jockey Club; a racing journalist, Myles Aylward, about to be ""redundant"" but asked to investigate shady off-turf practices; other owners, trainers, ant' bookies now being intimidated--not to forget the jock/jockey who's ""digging his grave with his tool"" and riding, among others, one owner's wife and another's daughter. There's an almost-fatal car accident, blackmail, a question of switched studs, and one horse that matters--big Alexander maligned as a ""hippopotamus"" but brought in by his weight. Welcome's a predictable storyteller but he delivers a lot of substantially interesting stuff without slowing up the track.