The Result

DISASTER STRIKES!

It had to happen eventually – and I had a sneaking suspicion that this year could buck the trends (as those of you who read my last post will know). But I didn’t expect it to happen quite so dramatically – as I had every horse from 2nd through to 9th backed!

Despite being ridden by the Champion Jockey, Don’t Push It simply couldn’t win according to all known statistics and form. He was too high in the weights at 11st 5lb (no horse has won carrying that much since Grittar in 1982) and was rated too high at 153 (only two horses in twenty years have been this level and none since Minnehoma in 1994).

The horse was backed from 22/1 to 10/1 favourite in the last half hour before the race so plenty of people must have won something, even if we didn’t!

However, many of the other pointers still hold true:

Aged between 9 and 11 – Yes (10)
Winner over 3m plus – Yes (3m 1f)
In the first 10 in the betting – Yes (joint favourite)
Winner of a Class 1 or Class 2 Chase – Yes
Had at least 10 runs over fences – Yes (12)
Ran within last 49 days – Yes (22 days previously)
Finished placed this season – Yes (2nd and 3rd)
Form in a National race – No

So apart from this last point – and of course the previously all important weight and rating band – Don’t Push It would have still qualified.

I take some small comfort that from my personal shortlist of five horses in this year’s bulletin, three of them finished in the top six places (albeit 4th, 5th and 6th). This included the well fancied Big Fella Thanks and my big priced outsider tip Hello Bud at 50/1 (morning price) – so hopefully some of you will have made a bit of money (or at least covered your stake) backing them each way. Arbor Supreme was also going well when unseating its rider at Bechers on the second circuit.

But I might have to go back to the drawing board – the fact that the race is now effectively a compressed handicap has definitely made it easier for horses carrying more weight. Remarkably nine out of the first ten horses carried 10st 11lb or more this year (and it was even seven out of ten last year). In fact, despite the statistic relating to the weight carried by Grand National winners, only one horse has finished in the first four carrying less than 10st 11lb in the last three years.

That’s just one horse out of a possible 12 places, so we have to sit up and take notice of these changing trends… The system may need some further tweaks – as it did back at the turn of the new millennium.

So we live to fight another day – the bulletin has fought back from adversity before so we’ll try to do so again next year. But that’s two years in a row I’ve failed now. Three strikes and I’m out!