Last year’s winner Macdermott one of two fatalities in Scottish National

Last year’s winner Macdermott was one of two fatalities in the Coral Scottish Grand National at Ayr on Saturday.

Sent off at 16-1 in his bid to repeat his win of 12 months ago, the Willie Mullins-trained Macdermott was once again ridden by Danny Mullins, but was pulled up sharply before the 10th fence.

In what was an incident-packed race with only eight finishers from 23 runners, Nigel Twiston-Davies’ The Kniphand fell at the second-last and like Macdermott suffered a fatal injury.

While all the jockeys in the four-mile marathon were essentially unscathed, Harry Atkins, the rider of Snipe who came down at the seventh, was stood down having been knocked unconscious.

Clerk of the course Graeme Anderson said: “All the jockeys are OK.

“Harry Atkins was stood down because he was knocked out but everybody else is up and OK.

“Unfortunately there were two equine fatalities, The Kniphand and Macdermott.”