Grand National Betting Guide
After a fantastic Cheltenham, the focus in April moves swiftly to the great National Hunt meetings in Liverpool and Punchestown. Much more than just one feature race, Aintree’s Grand National meeting is eagerly anticipated by the National Hunt punter and once a year punter alike. This is then matched at the end of the month by Ireland’s thrilling Punchestown Festival. The Aintree & Punchestown Festivals Betting Guide 2010 cherry picks the best races from both meetings, helping punters to find those most sought after winners in approximately 30 races. Those races are forensically analysed from a trends perspective to highlight the most likely winners in the same manner employed by the ever-popular Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide. Also included is an in-depth ante-post preview of the John Smith’s Grand National.
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Grand National Betting Tips
Grand National Betting
Run in early April at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, the Grand National is one of the major betting events in the sporting calendar.
Its history and excitement captures the public’s imagination, with once a year punters coming out in force to have their annual bet. Sweepstakes hit the workplace with bookmakers drafting in more staff to cope with the demand, and more often than not the day ensures a massive payday for the bookies, with Grand National betting worth well over £100 million to the industry.
The Grand National is the most-watched horse race of the year with over 10 million viewers tuning into the BBC, and over 250 million people worldwide will see the race unfold.
The course is flat but demanding and brings together all of a jockey and horses talents.
In order to get round, the jockey will have to show great horsemanship, with winning horses showing varying qualities like – stamina, speed, rhythm, jumping, courage and above all luck.
Being a handicap the race is extremely hard to win on more than one occasion, as previous winners will invariably have to shoulder extra weight if they want to run in the race in future years. There are some exceptions to this rule as past famous results saw the talented Red Rum win the race three times in the seventies, but since then no horse has been good enough to win back-to-back Grand Nationals.
First run in 1839 the race is run over a marathon trip of four miles 4 furlongs (4 ½ miles) over two circuits, jumping 30 of the most tricky and testing fences in jump racing. There are 16 fences on each circuit with each fence being jumped twice with the exception of the Water Jump and The Chair which are only jumped on the first circuit. The Chair is the tallest and broadest of all the fences at 5 feet 2 inches high, and if still in contention after jumping these they then have a 500 yard run in towards the finishing line, which over the years can completely change the picture of the race.
Of the other fences probably the most famous is Beecher’s Brook. Jumped twice, it’s different in that the drop on the landing side is lower than the take-off, and then once jumped the horses have a sharp left-handed turn to make.
The race is also unique in that it allows both amateurs and professionals (as trainers and jockeys) to compete against one another for the prize, and although they normally send over a fair amount of horses past results have seen the Irish only winning the race 23 times in its history, most recently with Silver Birchin 2007.
Jenny Pitman was the only woman to have trained a winner of the race until 2009 when Venetia Williamssaddled Mon Mome to glory at odds of 100/1 – the biggest winning price since 1967.
When selecting a horse to win the race there are various trends and past results that will help when picking horses that will run well. Firstly the age of the horse can prove to be useful with 9 year-old Grand National runners having the best record in the race; this could be down to the gruelling trip as many would say that at nine staying chasers should be at or near their peak.
Other Grand National betting points to look out for are horses at the top end of the handicap have a poor record with a massive 24 out of the last 25 runnings carrying less than 11 stone to victory, and due to the competitive nature of the race horses with double figure starting prices also have a fair record with only six horses since 1977 winning at odds of less than 10/1.
Finally, it’s worth having horses that have run recently on your side as ALL the last 20 winners last ran within 48 days of landing the Grand National!
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