RACING: Tony Martin has announced he will appeal against the controversial ban that rules Davids Lad out of the Martell Grand National on April 5th. The ante-post second favourite for the Aintree spectacular was suspended for 42 days at Naas on Sunday after the stewards decided the racecourse had been used as a training ground.

Under the same rule Martin was fined €1,000 and jockey Timmy Murphy banned for seven race days. However, Martin vigorously defended the running and riding of the horse yesterday and said the record of the 2001 Irish National winner should have been taken into account.

"This is a Graded Three-plus horse and any vet will tell you that's a hobday situation. He has a history with his wind and that was ignored. Ridden the right way he gets away with it but he couldn't on Sunday.

"It's like an old car with a bad engine. You crawl as best you can up a hill and then go like hell down hill. Only for Timmy (Murphy) having the courage and the nerves of steel to ride him like that he would never have won an Irish National.

"He has ridden him eight times, won on him four times and he knows the horse. He said he wasn't getting the right vibes and it was just the change of ground from the third last that made him finish alright," the Co Meath trainer said.

Martin did concede that the stewards were justified in looking at the film of the race.

"They have a job to do too and I've looked at it since and it does look terrible. If it was a 7lb claimer you would say he has made a mess of it but Timmy is a top jockey who knows the horse.

"All the times he has ridden him he has never hit the horse behind the saddle because there's no point. I'm not blaming Timmy at all. We have to appeal it. I know the stewards have a job to do but under the circumstances it looks a bit harsh. We will appeal all round," he added.

The 42-day ban means Davids Lad will miss Liverpool by just one day but the bookies, who had made him second favourite to improve on his National run last year when a fourth last faller, believe he will get the chance to run.

Paddy Power yesterday went 4 to 7 about Davids Lad being able to run following an appeal and 5 to 4 about him being ruled out after an appeal. A spokesman for the firm said: "They maybe won't win the appeal completely but it could be reduced and that would let the horse run."

Davids Lad, owned by Eddie Joe's Racing Syndicate, was the 14 to 1 outsider of eight in Sunday's Paddy & Helen Cox Memorial Newlands Chase over two miles. Afterwards, Murphy, who will be able to ride at the Cheltenham Festival because the race days apply to racing in Ireland, defended his tactics.

"I rode him the way I've always ridden him because of his wind problems. If you push him he chokes," he said. "The trip was probably too short for him and the ground was a bit dead. Any time I've won on him I've ridden him like that, just hanging on to him and he comes into the race himself. Yesterday that didn't happen so it obviously looked bad.

"But the horse was out to run his best race and I was told going out 'be as close as you can but make sure he improves for the run', so I just thought we were a bit hard done by.

"If I'd have knocked him around I'd maybe have finished a few lengths closer. He was the outsider of the field - he wasn't odds-on favourite or anything.

"We rode him so hopefully he'd improve again. He's a stuffy horse and these horses can only do so much at home and you have to get a run into him somewhere. He's so high in the handicap that there's not many races for him."

Murphy was not only concerned about himself missing out but also those who have backed Davids Lad and the owners themselves.

"A lot of punters have backed him for the National and there's been a lot of big bets. It's really not fair on them," he added.

"There's only one National and it's not as if you can come back every year. You only get one crack at it.

"He's been trained for Cheltenham and then hopefully the National. The way he ran last year he'd have a realistic chance of winning the Grand National so it's devastating for the owners from their point of view."

Martin said yesterday that Davids Lad's season will not be wrecked if he does miss Liverpool. He said: "There is also the Irish National, the Whitbread and the Scottish National at Ayr. But right now, the ground is always going to hinder him."