THE Grand national 9th April 2011

The highlight for many of the national hunt calendar, the Aintree Grand National takes place on Saturday 9th April. This year’s renewal has plenty to live up to after Tony McCoy’s emotional win on Don’t Push It last year. It’s always a fiercely competitive cavalry charge, you need plenty of luck to win it but there are plenty of key trends that can narrow the field down. Let’s face it guys it’s a race that has started to run to better form but the fast ground will take a big part of the finish Below we take a look at the trends for the past 10 years:

Age (Win-Place-Runners)

6yo: 0-0-8

7yo: 0-0-22

8yo: 1-9-66

9yo: 3-8-109

10yo: 4-6-89

11yo: 1-7-67

12yo: 1-0-28

13yo+: 0-0-10

Every winner since WWII (1946) has been aged 8 to 12

7 of 10 winners (including last 6) have been aged 9 or 10 (7-14-198)

In the past 6 years all 24 places were filled by horses aged 8 to 11

No horse aged below 8 or above 12 has made the frame in the past 10 years (0-0-40) 

Weight (Win-Place-Runners)

Horses carrying 10-11 or more: 5-17-168

Horses carrying 10-10 or less: 5-13-231

In recent years with the weights being more closely bunched, higher weights have done better with the 11 of 12 places in the past 3 years being filled by horses carrying 10-11 or more.

7 of 10 winners (7 of last 8) were initially allotted a weight of between 10-5 and 10-12 on publication of National weights.

10 of 10 winners carried no more than 14lbs higher than bottom weight

Top Weight: UF0FP290UF (0-1-10) 

Official Ratings

Horses rated 144 or higher: 3-14-131

Horses rated 143 or lower: 7-16-268

In recent years the trend has swung towards higher rated runners.

In last 6 years

Horses rated 144 or higher: 3-10-101

Horses rated 143 or lower: 3-8-139

Since 2004 17 of 24 places were filled by horses rated 140 or higher 

Breeding

Irish bred: 8-19-223 French bred: 1-6-101 British bred: 1-5-65

Other: 0-0-10

Mon Mome became the first French bred since 1909 to win the Grand National when landing the race in 2009.

 Irish bred horses have the best record having won 8 of the last 10 and filled in 27 of 40 places (67.5%) from approximately 55.9% of the runners.

Old Vic as a sire has done really well recently. None of his progeny ran in this between 2001 and 2007, but in the last 3 years his progeny accounted for 12 runners. These 12 runners produced 2 winners and 2 seconds in the past 3 runnings.

Recent/Past Form

10 of 10 winners had run 4 to 6 times since Sept 1

10 of 10 winners had run in at least 10 chases

10 of 10 winners had their last run since National weights were announced (past 50 days)

9 of 10 winners had won a listed or graded chase (exception had won a class 2 chase & a listed h'cap hurdle)

9 of 10 (last 8) had won a chase worth 29K+

9 of 10 winners (last 9) had won a chase over 3M+ (exception won a hurdle over 3M)

9 of 10 winners had won 3 to 5 chases

8 of 10 winners finished in the first 5 on last completed start

7 of 10 winners had not won that season (other 3 had won just once)

7 of 10 winners had run in 5 to 12 handicap chases

7 of 10 winners (last 7) had won 1 to 3 handicap chases

7 of 10 winners (7 of last 8 and all 4 Irish-trained winners) had a run over hurdles in January, February or March

 Course form NEGATIVE UNLESS YOUR LOOKING FOR A PLACE BET

Previous Year's winner (Can’t Buy Time): 46402620 (0-4-8)

Becher Chase winner (Hello Bud): 92PPPFU (0-1-7)

Previous season's Becher Chase winner (Vic Venturi): R7CF2 (0-1-5)

Positive course form

7 of 10 winners had previously run over the National fences

2 of 10 winners had won over the National fences, both in the Becher Chase 2 seasons prior to winning this

5 of 10 winners had run in the previous season's Grand National, finishing F3FF0

8 of 10 winners ran at the previous year's Aintree National meeting (5 in GN, 2 in Topham & 1 in John Smith's H'cap Chase), 1 exception won previous season's Irish National and other exception did race the previous season

Other Nationals

Prev season's Irish National winner (Bluesea Cracker): FU1FFFP (1-0-7)

6 of 10 winners had finished in the first 3 in the Irish, Welsh, Scottish or Aintree Grand Nationals

5 of 10 winners had run in a Welsh National, finishing 331P2

2 of 10 winners had run in an Irish National, finishing 01

2 of 10 winners had run in a Scottish National, finishing P9 

4 of 10 winners had finished in first 5 in a Hennessy Gold Cup (5544) these include  The Tother One (4^th) and Niche Market 5^th by ¾ length Big Fella Thanks (fell when making ground 3 out)  and Silver by Nature who finished 10th

2 of 10 winners had won the previous season’s Thyestes Chase 

Trainers

4 of 10 winners were trained in Ireland (4-9-85) from approximately 21.3% of the total runners and Irish-trained runners have filled 9 of the 20 places in the last 5 years.

Trainers who have won the race in the past 10 years and have entries this year are:

Jonjo O’Neill (1-3-17), Willie Mullins (1-2-15), David Pipe (1-1-14), Gordon Elliot (1-0-3), Venetia Williams (1-0-12) and Nigel Twiston-Davies (1-0-25).

Paul Nicholls (0-3-34), Evan Williams (0-2-2) and Tom Taaffe (0-2-3) have all saddled multiple placed horses.

Trainers with very poor records in the race in the past decade include:Philip Hobbs (0-1-9), Alan King (0-0-5), Howard Johnson (0-0-6), Nicky Henderson (0-0-10) and Ferdy Murphy (0-0-13).- has big Fella thanks today! 

Price

7 of 10 winners were priced 20/1 or below.

There has been 3 big shocks in the past decade with 33/1 winners in 2001 and 2007, plus a 100/1 winner in 2009.

9 of 10 winners were priced between 25/1 and 40/1 at publication of weights

Favourites (3-5-20) have gained 3 wins in the past 10 years, giving a level stakes profit of 7.50.

Summary: Based on the trends from the past 10 years you are looking for a horse: 

·         Aged 8 to 11 (9 or 10 especially)

·         Carrying 10-11 or more

·         carrying no more than a stone higher than bottom weight

·         Irish bred

·         Won no more than once this season

·         won a listed or graded chase worth 29K+

·         Won over 3M+

·         Run 4 to 6 times since September & run since 15th February

·         Run in at least 10 chases (winning 3 to 5)

·         Run over hurdles in 2011(Dont Push It) (Golden Kite ) (Surface to Air)(BallaBriggs)(Santas Son)

·         previously run over National fences

·         Placed in an Irish/Welsh/Scottish/Aintree National

·         Trained in Ireland

I really like to see a big run from the Irish in this and have highlited a few animals at tonight’s prices on betfair to see what the overnight betting changes there are  - horses have hightlighted in yellow  are either win or place chances on the above stats tomorrow will know more

 Good Punting

 Bob

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