Aintree Grand National Trends To Consider Before Placing Your Bet
Last Updated
: 14 Apr 2023
Grand National 2023 Trends Picks
With the 2023 Randox Health Grand National just around the corner, we’ve picked out the most important big-race trends that punters need to focus on before placing their Aintree wagers with betting sites.
Not only that, we’ve done the hard work for you by pinpointing three horses that fit the bill perfectly and don’t worry - there isn’t a favourite in sight!
Let’s take a look at the most important Grand national trends.
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The Most Important Grand National Trends
Age - Stick To Horses Aged Between 8 And 11
This is a really easy way to strip back several of the runners because age is hugely important when trying to find the Grand National winner.
Only one horse older than 11 (Amberleigh House in 2004) has won the race this century but recent trends point to younger horses becoming dominant: no horse older than nine has won the race since 2014, while 2022 winner Noble Yeats was the first seven-year-old to win the race since 1940.
Previous Experience Of The Race Is Not That Crucial
The Grand National is a unique race and conventional wisdom would suggest that having previous experience in the contest would be advantageous but that hasn’t proved the case in recent years.
The flip side of having Grand National experience is that it’s almost impossible to be well enough handicapped to win the race if you have already run in it, which makes race debutants a much better handicapped group of runners.
That goes a long way to explaining why 12 of the last 14 winners were running in the race for the first time.
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Stamina Is As Important As Ever
This one is crucial when picking your Grand National bets. You have to go back to 1970 to find the last Grand National winner that had not previously won or been placed over three miles, whether it be over hurdles or fences.
The Grand National is one of the longest races run all year and a whole host of the field will fail to stay the 4m2.5f trip, so focus on runners that stay well.
Market Prominence No Guarantee To Success
The Grand National is not a great race for favourite backers, so much so that only three winners since the turn of the century were sent off a single-figure price with betting apps.
Tiger Roll (2019) is the only winning favourite since 2012, during which period, the race has thrown up winners priced 33/1, 66/1, 25/1, 25/1, 33/1, 50/1.
Weight Matters
Carrying a big weight to Grand National glory is a tough ask, so much so that only one horse has carried more than 11st 6lb (Many Clouds 11st 9lb in 2015) to victory this century.
Furthermore, only Tiger Roll has carried more than 11st to victory since 2016.
Ultimately, the more weight a horse is carrying, the tougher the task he or she faces in the 2023 Grand National so horses towards the top of the weights should be avoided.
Which Horses Fit The Bill in 2023?
First on the list of horses that fit the bill to win the 2023 Grand National based on the above trends is Lifetime Ambition.
Trained by Jessica Harrington, this eighth-year-old has never run in the national before but, crucially, does have experience of the national fences having shaped nicely in the Grand Sefton Chase in November, where a lack of match practice took its toll late on.
He stays well, won’t be carrying a big weight and is trained in Ireland, where five of the last six winners have come from.
Another contender to fit the bill is Coral Gold Cup (the Hennessy, to most of us) winner Le Milos who probably wasn’t cherry ripe for his return at Kelso last month, when he was collared late in the bet365 Premier Chase.
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Long regarded as a ‘national type’ by trainer Dan Skelton, Le Milos is by no means fully exposed as a staying chaser but he stays and jumps extremely well and he looks capable of providing his trainer with yet another big race winner this season.
The final selection is Vanillier, another Irish-trained contender making his debut in the race.
Vanillier showed us just how well he stays when scorching clear from the last flight to win the 2021 Albert Bartlett Novices’ hurdle by 11 lengths, a performance that highlighted the son of Martaline as one of the brightest staying prospects around at the time.
His chasing career hasn’t gone the way many expected but there was a lot to like about his staying-on second behind Kemboy in the Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse in February and, if he can get into a decent jumping rhythm, he looks exactly the sort of horse that can go well at a nice price.
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