The eagerly awaited Grand National, every armchair racing fan’s favourite race, takes place this Saturday. This year is the 169th renewal of the world’s most famous steeplechase, run at Aintree in Liverpool.
The distance of 4 miles 2 furlongs and 74 yards makes this the longest race in Britain and, in front of the horses are 30 of the most famous fences in racing, including Bechers Brook, Valentines Brook and the Canal Turn. Last year’s winner Many Clouds bids to follow up and join the likes of Red Rum in winning this race more than once, but there are 39 others that will be bidding to stop him.
So, how do we go about narrowing this field down? There are certain trends you can follow but we believe that you need to be selective and use trends that have a meaning, rather than just statistical coincidence. Rather than look at previous winners of this race, we’ve looked at the first 3 home in each of the last 7 renewals as it is believed that will give us a better handle of what trends really shouldn’t be opposed. That’s the form of 21 horses we’ll be looking at.
Key Trends
Following our analysis, there are 4 ‘must have’ trends you just cannot oppose. First up is age. Each of the 21 horses in the first 3 in the last 7 runnings of this race were aged between 8 and 11 years old. To go close in a Grand National, you need some experience as jumping is at a premium and there’s 30 big fences to overcome whilst beyond 11 years old and it is likely the horse is on downgrade as it enters into the latter years of its racing career.
Being the longest race in Britain, stamina is at a premium and 20 of the 21 had won a chase over at least 3 miles. The only exception in the last 7 years was the 2012 favourite, Seabass. Form over further is preferred as we want a horse that will still have something in the tank coming over the last.
Experience is vital as the fences take some getting used to. It’s not uncommon for horses that have already been over the fences to run again the following year. 20 of 21 had raced at least 10 times over fences, this is another statistic we cannot ignore. Finally, we are looking for a horse with recent racecourse experience. Again, 20 of 21 had run in the last 60 days. Whilst this may not seem important, we believe that any absence greater than this indicates some sort of problem in the build up and you cannot win a Grand National if you are not 100%.
At the current declaration stage and looking at the top 40 in the weights, we can instantly dismiss over half the field with 22 runners failing on at least one of the above trends. With 18 still left to narrow down, let’s see if we can delve a little deeper with our ‘secondary’ trends.
18 of 21 had placed or won over 3 miles 2 furlongs, extending the stamina argument, whilst 19 of 21 have won a chase worth at least £29,000. This indicates that you need a horse that has some very good form to its name in quality races and that we won’t be looking for horses plying their trade at a lowly level.
The last 2 trends to consider are recent and big field form. 17 have finished in the first 3 in at least 1 of their last 3 starts, whilst 16 of 21 have big field form (finishing in the first 2 in a big field) in the previous 15 months (ie. since the start of the previous year). A lot of people dismiss the need for a horse’s liking for a big field and it’s the 1 trend that will likely not be found in ANY other analysis of the big race.
Summary
Of the last 7 renewals:
Only 3 of 21 have failed on any of the ‘must have’ trends.
Of the remaining 18, none have failed on 2 or more of the ‘secondary’ trends.
13 of 18 have failed on 1 ‘secondary’ trend.
5 have passed all 8 trends.
7 more horses in this year’s field have failed 2 or more of the ‘secondary’ trends so this reduces the field further from 18 to 11. It is from these 11 that we believe this year’s winner will come and, furthermore, they are likely to fill the 1-2-3 for anyone wanting a go at the tricast.
Trend Setters
There are 7 horses that meet all 8 trends; they are last year’s 1-2, Many Clouds and Saint Are, as well as The Druids Nephew, Holywell, Soll, Goonyella, Just A Par. The 4 that fail on just 1 ‘secondary’ trend are Triolo D’Alene, Unioniste, Le Reve and The Romford Pele. It is worth noting that Bishop’s Road would also enter this group should he get in at the final declaration stage.
We hope this helps as a starter. We’ll be back later with a preview of each of the 40 runners.
