Grand National Betting 
/ Simon Rowlands / 05 April 2011 / Leave a Comment 
The Chair at Aintree
"There is usually little incident from the first Canal Turn (fence eight) to the third obstacle on the final circuit (fence 19), with the exception of the formidable "Chair" (fence 15)."
Regular Betting.Betfair blogger Simon Rowlands give you a couple of clues as to how to make money on the Grand National without backing the winner...
The number of ways in which you can win and lose money at betting seems to increase with every year, and the market managers at Betfair are at their most creative when it comes to a race of the magnitude of the John Smith's Grand National, due to be run at 16:15 this Saturday at Aintree.
In addition to win markets, place markets, match bets and the like, there are likely to be all sorts of 'Specials' markets (due to be live by Midday on Thursday). You don't have to be a once-a-year punter to enjoy getting stuck into these, but it does help to know a bit of history to inform your choices.
The simple advice where "winning weight" (under 11-0 or 11-0 and over) and "Irish winner" (a simple yes/no proposition) are concerned is to derive a fair price from the win market, splitting the field into qualifiers in each category and summing the percentage chance of each.
Percentage chance is 100/P, where P is the prevailing Betfair decimal price. For instance, odds of 6.4 give a percentage of 100/6.4 = 15.6. Summed percentages of, say, 60 imply fair decimal odds for all qualifiers combined of 100/60 = 1.67.
Winning weights have been historically low, with seven of the last ten winners coming in at "unders". But this trend is very much subject to change regarding how the handicap is compiled, and two of the three "overs" have come in the last two years.
Fair odds for "winning distance" and "number of finishers" cannot be inferred directly from the win market, but past Grand Nationals are likely to be a decent guide. Six of the last ten winners on good or good to soft going have won by less than 6 lengths (even after adjustment has been made for different ways of returning margins over the years); three have won by between 6 and 12 lengths; and just one has won by more than 12 lengths.
The number of finishers, again for the last ten races run on good or good to soft going, has varied between nine and 21, with three at less than 12 finishers, six at 12 to 18 finishers and just one at more than 18 finishers.
The state of the going is important where finishers are concerned, with the softer the going the fewer the completions in general. The 1998 and 2001 Grand Nationals were run on bottomless ground and resulted in just six and four finishers respectively.
The ground at Aintree at the start of the week was described as "good to soft, good in places" on the National course and the long-term weather forecast is for little rain. A close(ish) finish and a mid-range number of completers deserve to be favourites in their respective markets as things stand.
There is also the prospect of getting a bet on even after things have got under way. The Grand National may seem like an example of utter and unpredictable chaos once the tape goes up, but the Form Book even manages to give guidance here.
You can expect departures to occur with a degree of predictability, but do be mindful of the possibility of a Black Swan event like the one in 1967 that put paid to all bar the 100/1-winner Foinavon at the 23rd fence which now bears his name!
The accompanying spreadsheet shows the non-completion rate at the various obstacles for the last ten Grand Nationals run on good and good to soft going. "Non-completion" means horses still in the race that attempted and failed to clear the obstacle in question. A faller late in the race is highly likely to be a bigger percentage of the remaining runners than one early on.
Grand National non completions
The figures show that Becher's Brook on the second circuit is the toughest obstacle, followed by the very first fence (at which point the runners and riders, on edge after the extended preliminaries, are often going too fast). There is usually little incident from the first Canal Turn (fence eight) to the third obstacle on the final circuit (fence 19), with the exception of the formidable "Chair" (fence 15).
There is little likelihood of a departure in the closing stages with the marked exception of fence 27, the fourth-last, an obstacle without a big reputation but with a ditch on the take-off side that is six-feet wide. Get over this and your horse is highly likely to finish the race if still in contention.
Hopefully, these figures may act as some guide if you are trying to weigh up the likelihood of the expected or unexpected occurring once the race has been turned "in play".
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