The 2009 Grand National

[manckevin]

Surprised there isn't anything up already (I have looked, honestly), although I appreciate there are a few threads bouncing around which discuss various aspects. For ease of reference, from what I can find, I have listed these below: Comprehensive Grand National Form Guide (great write up for the first post) The Parsons Legacy for the 2009 National Thread! (is PL responsible for a halving of the price) Beat Victor Grand National Competition (easy money, I say) and where would we be without the wonders of the archived 2008 thread: Grand National 2008 (winner mentioned plenty of times in here, including at massive ante-post odds) And whilst I'm at it, here is one brilliant link I found on that 2008 thread for all you trend followers: http://www.grand-national-guide.co.uk I'll be back with my views later, but hopefully one of our very nice and helpful mods will make this prominent somewhere ;) and may I wish everyone having a bet this year, for fun or as part of your seasoned campaign in bookie bashing all the very best, and let's all hope for a safe race too!

[manckevin]

Re: The 2009 Grand National If you're new to PL, and thought you'd pop in, may I start of by saying :welcome. They're a good bunch here, so stick around :ok Right, down to business... Using the Grand National Guide site I posted in my first post, I've entered the following trends to follow based on the 2008 thread and what I've found elsewhere (see below for the outcome): Chase Wins of 3m+ : 1 Weight : 9-11 to 11-3 (people will argue about this till Sunday) OR : 135 or better Last Race : finished in top 7 Age : 8 to 12 At least one run this season Must have run in last 50 days This brings me a shortlist of six. They are: Rambling Minster, L'Ami, Kilbeggan Blade, Darkness, Southern Vic and Brooklyn Brownie Now I'm assuming L'Ami (FR) means French bred, which is, if I remember correctly is a big negative then that's out of the equation. It has tried twice before though, finishing 10th and falling last year, so, if the argument about French horses is all based on their perceived lack of stamina it may be worth keeping this one onside, for now at least (more about that later). My earlier research started this week and straight away I ruled out anything carrying over 11-3 (go on, bite, I know you want to), anything French (including L'Ami), and keeping anything aged 8-12 that has won over at least 3 miles. This brought the list down to 16. Now this is where the 2008 thread kicked in (Page 1, if I recall - cheers AK), and yes, I accept some of those stats may now be out of date. At this point, I applied the rule that the horse must have an Official Rating of 135 (goodbye to Idle Talk and Arteea). In applying that the horse must have finished 7th or better in it's last race this also got rid of Parson's Legacy, Himalayan Trail, Fleet Street, Silver Birch and Reveillez. Another stat mentioned that the last 19 (as of last year) winners had been placed in a race in the current season however this did not have any bearing and removed no further runners. I am now left with: Kilbeggan Blade, Rambling Minster, Offshore Account, State of Play, Cornish Sett, Southern Vic, Darkness, Brooklyn Brownie and Fundamentalist. So, back to that 2008 thread, where it is identified that the last 23 (again, at 2008) winners had run in the last 50 days we can remove State of Play (77). Finally, anything that has run in the National (Aintree) before and finished worse than 6th is removed (although keeping in fallers - remember Hedgehunter) gets rid of Cornish Sett (and for those of you still arguing about L'Ami, that too - 10th in 2007). So. My final shortlist is as below, but I have separated them into A, B and C bets (A being most confident) based on where it was finally eliminated. Within each group they are in no particular order, although it does loosely resemble my initial longlist: A BETS Kilbeggan Blade, Rambling Minster, Southern Vic, Darkness, Brooklyn Brownie, Fundamentalist, Offshore Account B BETS State of Play, Cornish Sett C BETS Parsons Legacy, Himalayan Trail, Silver Birch, Fleet Street, Idle Talk, Reveillez, Arteea The underlined horses also came up on the Grand National Guide, as posted earlier in this message, giving me greater confidence that I haven't missed something. L'Ami, is missing! Now I think I have a pretty good chance again this year, and that is ALL down to the input of the many regulars on this site. In fact, I've had the winner of this particular lottery in 9 out of the last 11 years (and so, much of that I have to also put down to the quality of information on here) so can I please say, post up with your feelings, your fears or anything you may think will be of relevance. I know that the Grand National will bring in many new people who are just visitors - let's make them stay - after all, it's Chester soon ;) and we're all in this together :) GOOD LUCK! Oh and if anyone has spotted any flawed logic in any of the above, shout up won't ya :ok