Part Four: After the Winter We've Had, Only One Name Stands Out To Me
Read
Part One: Shortening the field through weight and age
and
Part Two: Class and reunion
and
Part Three: The Ultimate Elimination Tool
Over the past few weeks we've analysed the trends of the Grand National and in some cases applied those trends to the current runners. Now, we're going to recap step-by-step the strongest and most solid trends and reduce the field to our final selections for this year's race.
In the last segment, I introduced you to a fantastic tool which I will use to automatically eliminate horses as each trend is considered.
Weight and age
In the first segment I pointed out to you the most significant factors in the Grand National: Weight and age.
Since 1957 only twice have horses carrying more than 11-5 won. Both those victories went to Red Rum, clearly an exceptional horse. In fact the last time a horse carrying more than 11-1 won the race was 1983 when Corbiere won carrying 11-4
No horse under 8-years-old has won since the war. No horse over 12 has won for even longer.
Applying these facts to the current field, we would still be left with over forty runners. This shows how the industry has become wise to the key trends that dominate the race.
However, in that segment I introduced a way to dramatically cut down the field by playing the percentages with these two key factors. I discussed the high probability of the winner being in the weight group of 10-5 to 10-7 and in the age group of 9 to 11 years old.
Using our elimination tool today, we find only four horses now that fall into those two categories and the great news is that their odds are very high as follows:
IRISH RAPTOR 11-10-7 40/1
ABBEYBRANEY 9-10-5 66/1
CERIUM 9-10-5 66/1
MR POINTMENT 11-10-7 84/1
Because we achieved this list by playing the percentages or in other words making an approximation based on the laws of probability, this requires that our betting should play the percentages also. In other words, it's reasonable to place an each-way bet on horses in this group.
For now though let's return to the bigger field and see if we can't break it down some more.
In my second segment I showed how no horse with a handicap rating below 136 had won the race and I provided weight and age ranges that had a fantastic percentage record: Over 75% of winners in the last twenty years are in the 9 to 11 year old age group and no horse, other than Hedgehunter (11-1) and Mon Mome last year, has won the race carrying 11-0 or more in twenty-one years. This gives us a much more focussed group of, right now, THIRTEEN RUNNERS and here they are:
CHARACTER BUILDING
SNOWY MORNING
WHINSTONE BOY
STATE OF PLAY
CHIEF DAN GEORGE
MALJIMAR
KING JOHN'S CASTLE
OFFSHORE ACCOUNT
ABBEYBRANEY
BALLYFITZ
CHELSEA HARBOUR
CONNA CASTLE
LENNON
We'll come back to the other key message of the second segment at the end of this article. For now lets address all the other key trends.
In the third segment I pointed out that for forty years or so, no horse had won here that was not a previous victor over three miles or more. Additionally, not one winner in the past ten years had previously failed to strike in a race worth 17,000 pounds or over. Watch how our list has now reduced once we apply these factors:
CHARACTER BUILDING
SNOWY MORNING
WHINSTONE BOY
STATE OF PLAY
CHIEF DAN GEORGE
OFFSHORE ACCOUNT
CHELSEA HARBOUR
We're down to seven, folks! But we can still reduce it further. Also in the third segment I mentioned to watch out for horses that had been raced in hurdles early in the season in order to prevent the handicapper from weighting them out of the race. The only notable horse that fit the bill for this trend, Cane Break, has since been pulled out. So back to our seven.
Now to apply a couple more key trends to our short-list. Every one of the last ten winners had run in Chases on at least ten occasions before coming here and experience of the stiff Aintree fances in particular has proven most critical to past winners. Once we remove those horses that have not had at least ten chases behind them and/or have never raced at Aintree, we reduce our list to only four runners:
SNOWY MORNING
STATE OF PLAY
OFFSHORE ACCOUNT
CHELSEA HARBOUR
Finally we return to my second segment and the fact that a majority of Grand National winners (and placed horses) were not entering the race for the first time. Can this trend reduce our field further? In fact no. All four of the horse in our shortlist featured in last year's Grand National and among them only one fell: Chelsea Harbour (which does not disqualify based on past trends) and only one horse made the frame: State of Play. Neither of these horses win my vote though.
Trend Busters
One of the biggest trend-busters in recent years was clearly Mon Mome, being the second of only two horses to carry 11-0 or more to victory in pover two decades. This is significant and for me even though Mon Mome seems now weighted out of it, his recent performance in the Gold Cup was most impressive and suggested to me that we might well be looking at another Red Rum here. However, another key trend in the Grand National that we have not discussed is that, with very few exceptions, horses who race in the Cheltenham festival have a poor record in the Grand National where freshness and restedness is also a very important factor.
What though of the other horse to bust the weight trend? Hedgehunter's trainer Willie Mullins clearly demonstrated a knack for training winners of the big race when his horse broke the weight trend a few years ago and this year he has one of the horses on our short-list: SNOWY MORNING.
With Offshore Account dismissed also for his appearance at Cheltenham, regardless of how respectable the run, it boils down to just three horses and for my money, of the three, Snowy Morning would be the pick of the three but all three should be considered good each-way bets. One final look at the odds:
SNOWY MORNING 23/1
STATE OF PLAY 25/1
CHELSEA HARBOUR 100/1
I'll be accepting donations after the race if one of these, in particular Snowy Morning, is the winner!
Related articles:
How to Pick a GN winner