THERE is more to the Grand National than daring jockeys and flying birch. An intriguing sub-plot this year is the destiny of an owners’ title that will almost certainly be settled when the big boys descend on Aintree like wildebeest at the watering hole.

J. P. McManus, David Johnson, Trevor Hemmings and Sir Robert Ogden will all stoop to drink, often side by side. What they will not do, however, is discuss the grubby business of money — and who leads who by how much. Each would like to win it, yet each maintains it is not their prime concern.

As much becomes evident when raising the subject in conversation. Johnson, the leading owner five times, is the most forthright. “J. P. will win it,” he maintained yesterday. “The National will decide it, and he’s got three or four solid chances this year. As a betting man I wouldn’t mind having a few shillings on him — and he deserves it, because he’s had some rotten luck this year.”

What Johnson does not say is that his own luck has been just as cruel. Well Chief and Classified are just two high-profile horses to have been sidelined all season. And if McManus has tasted disappointment at Aintree, Johnson, too, has yet to win jump racing’s most coveted prize.

“We’ve been close but we’ve never got there,” he reflected. “Lord Atterbury was third (in 2004) but he doesn’t look like making the cut this time. It Takes Time is probably my best chance, he was fourth last year. I’ve also got Therealbandit but my tank is running on vapour at the moment. I’ve used up all my petrol.”

It is unlikely McManus will have to contend with last year’s dilemma, when he endeavoured to track seven runners over the famous birch. In all probability his binoculars were glued to Clan Royal until the gelding was taken out by loose horses when leading at Becher’s second time round. Clan Royal tries again, together with Risk Accessor and the François Doumen-trained pair, Innox and First Gold.

Frank Berry, McManus’s racing manager, is certainly aware of his patron’s narrow lead over Johnson. “I suppose a good show at Liverpool would just about settle it,” he acknowledged, “but the same could be said for the others. For us, it’s more important to be winning races. We don’t set out at the start of the year to be leading owner.”

A significant aspect of McManus’s popularity is his capacity to take the rough with the smooth. That has been tested to the hilt this season, the death of Lingo preceding two more at the Cheltenham Festival. “Unfortunately, that’s the way it goes sometimes,” Berry said. “We’re hoping Aintree is kind to us, and if we end up as leading owner, obviously we will be pleased. It would be a nice bonus, put it that way.”

Some £280,000 adrift of McManus in third place is Hemmings, who remains the only one of the four yet to win the accolade. Yet he could well hold the highest trump in Hedgehunter, last year’s Grand National winner and most recently a heart-warming runner-up in the Gold Cup. “While I keep an eye on the owners’ list,” Mick Meagher, Hemmings’s racing manager, said, “I don’t think Mr Hemmings pays a lot of attention to it. Winning the National is more important, and when you think of it, one would sort out the other.”

Hemmings’s already healthy appetite for the race increased with Hedgehunter’s triumph. He has another possible runner next week in Juveigneur, but Hedgehunter is the totem. “He proved in the Gold Cup that he goes on any ground,” Meagher said, “but we hope it is good on the day because he has so much weight. I’m sure Mr Hemmings would like to end the season as leading owner but the National comes first.”

For the man in fourth place, simply being in with a mathematical chance is sufficient reward. In recent years Ogden has scaled down his string to concentrate on quality. Holding on to the leaders’ coat tails has pleased a man who has won the owners’ title three times — most recently five years ago, when a valuable double on the last day of the season at Sandown completed an improbable feat.

Like McManus and Johnson, however, Ogden has yet to win the Grand National. “We’ve had a couple of fourth places,” Barry Simpson, his racing manager, said, “and it was cruel luck when Ad Hoc was brought down four out when travelling so well (in 2002). Mind you, there are plenty of others with similar tales to tell.”

Ogden expects to be represented by Iris Royal, described by Henderson, who trains him, as one who could thrive at Aintree. “It looks like he might just get into the race,” Simpson said, “but you can’t think seriously of winning the National, you need so much luck on your side. If it happened it would throw us into the mix for the owners’ title. But even then, we’d probably be picked off come Sandown (when the season closes on April 29).”

HOW THEY BET

JOHN SMITH’S GRAND NATIONAL

Ladbrokes: 4-1 Hedgehunter, 6-1 Clan Royal, 12-1 Numbersixvalverde, 14-1 Innox, 16-1 Jack High, 20-1 Cornish Rebel, Dun Doire, Joes Edge, Sir Rembrandt, 25-1 Colnel Rayburn, Direct Access, Garvivonnian, Juveigneur, Lord Of Illusion, Ross Comm, Royal Auclair, Silver Birch, 33-1 others.

William Hill: 5-1 Hedgehunter, 11-2 Clan Royal, 12-1 Numbersixvalverde, 14-1 Innox, 16-1 Jack High, 18-1 Royal Auclair, Sir Rembrandt, 22-1 Cornish Rebel, Dun Doire, 25-1 Garvivonnian, Silver Birch, 28-1 others.