Martin Pipe and Tony McCoy girded their loins for the Grand National meeting, which begins at Aintree this afternoon with a 70 to 1 hat-trick at Ascot yesterday.

Brains and brawn are required to make a champion jockey and McCoy demonstrated both as he rode Galant Moss, Dictamn and Dark Stranger to victory for Pipe, who on Saturday attempts a four-piece assault on the Martell National, which he won in 1994 with Miinnehoma.

Most valuable of the trio was Galant Moss' even-money win in the Grade Two Grosvenor Casinos Long Distance Hurdle, a race in which McCoy showed he has the grey matter to match his well-documented muscle.

Early on, McCoy's suitability for University Challenge seemed open to question as he anchored his mount last of five with Lord Jim setting a modest gallop.

But the champion, mindful that a sprint would ensue at the finish, crucially moved his mount forward on the turn for home.

Jumping the last with the leader, Galant Moss led on the run-in for a two-and-a-half-length success from Lord Jim, who short-headed Paddy's Return for second.

Galant Moss had appeared to lack the stamina for three miles and two furlongs at Cheltenham last time and Pipe said: "It was three miles at Cheltenham and three miles here. They sprinted at the end but he finished in front and that is what counts.

"That was the plan, to take it up at the last or halfway up the run in."

It was the power of McCoy's biceps that was in evidence for Dictamn's 16 to 1 win in the Brunswick Handicap Hurdle.

With two flights of the race remaining, Mick Fitzgerald brimmed with confidence on Premier Generation.

Nicky Henderson's six-year-old went on running to the last but was powerless when McCoy dredged one last effort out of Dictamn, who got up to win by a head.

Fitzgerald, who won the opening Grosvenor Casinos Novice Hurdle on Henderson's Kings Boy, partnered the same trainer's Eagles Rest in the three-runner Partnership Parade Novice Chase, for which he started the 5 to 6 favourite.

But blunders at the six out and two out put paid to his hopes, leaving McCoy and 11 to 10 second choice Dark Stranger to make all from Master Chuzzlewit.

Only Wise King and Timmy Murphy prevented a Pipe/McCoy four-timer as the Jim Old-trained nine-year-old proved too quick for Northern Starlight in the Allied Irish Bank Handicap Chase.