Horse Racing Fixture Profiler - Guide to the Grand National 2010

The Profiler's Guide to the Grand National 2010 Saturday 10th April at Aintree

Part Three: The Ultimate Elimination Tool

Read Part One: Shortening the field through weight and age
and Part Two: Class and reunion

With just short of three weeks to go to the big race, it's fair to say that we are taking the final turn and heading to the long run-in to the finish in this series. So far we have discovered that the Grand National is very much the subject of strong trends meaning it's not the lottery it appears or that most people think.

We've shown that there are very clear sweet spots in the list of runners based on weight and age. When you shortlist the horses with advantage in these areas, we've discovered that more than half the field can be eliminated.

In Part Two we learned of the great record of horses that have run in the National before. Red Rum is not the only horse to have gained success when revisiting. Many winners even in the past decade and including 100/1 Mon Mome were revisiting as we have seen.

So what other trends can we uncover to help us reduce the field even more? Quite a few actually. For example, in almost forty years, not one horse who has entered this race without a previous win over three miles has won it. Armed with that information alone, you can reduce the field further. That's not all. The last ten winners had all won a race valued at least 17,000 pounds before coming here (which by the way lets a popular Ballyfitz out of the running).

So you see the value of coming to this race armed with knowledge about the historic record. However, with over forty runners still in the race, do you really have to delve deep into the form and history of each of those horses in order to shorten your list of hopefuls? Not now because I'm about to share a secret weapon with you that will do all the work for you.

The Grand National Guide web site to which I have provided links throughout this article series (see Grand National Trends listed in right panel) not only clearly highlights the key trends for the race but now also provides a special tool that will automatically eliminate horses for you that don't meet the special trending criteria. This superb tool for helping you shorten the field and produce your winning selection can be found here so if you haven't used it yet, give it a look.

Armed with the tool mentioned above and the knowledge of the trends I have shared with you in these articles, I was able to quickly produce a short-list of runners but I didn't stop there. As the Guide mentioned above rightly points out, it is common practice for trainers targeting the National with their horses to run them in hurdles early in the season in order to protect their Chase handicap rating (which is measured seperately from hurdle handicap ratings). We are advised to look among the short-listed candidates for a horse that has been treated in such a manner by his trainer. I did just that to save you all a lot of work and guess what I found out? Of the short-listed candidates, only one horse had been run mainly over hurdles throughout the early season before running in a single chase ahead of the National. That horse is Cane Break.

So what am I saying here? Am I saying that Cane Break will win the Grand National? Find out at the end of the month when I present to you my final article in this series and share with you my honest and considered view on who will win the Grand National 2010.

The final part of this series will be published on March 31st 2010. Be sure to bookmark this page.