Grand National Betting / XY Factor / 24 March 2009 / Leave a comment

Betting.betfair tipster XY Factor sorts the wheat from the chaff to select 16 potential winners of the nation's favourite race. The winner of the 16 will be announced in the second article.

If finding the winner of the Grand National wasn't hard enough on the day itself, ante-post punters are faced with an even bigger jigsaw to put together.

This year there are 88 pieces - and we'll now attempt to sift through the runners to bring you a short list to look at for the big race at Aintree on 4th April.

Through a serious of evictions we will root out the no-hopers from the potential stars - using a series of statistical filters on our National computer. We'll end up with a final list of 16 that will then go forward to our version of 'boot camp' - the last 16 play-offs!

It's time to whittle down the list of 88 runners and time for the first eviction...


EVICTION ONE - "If you ain't in it - you can't win it"
It's hard to predict which horse will even head the weights at this stage with top weight Snoopy Loopy being ruled out in favour of the Totesport Bowl at the same meeting and Paul Nicholls stating that Nozic, who is next in the weights, is unlikely to make the race. Connections of Irish raider Conna Castle have also expressed doubts about that one making the journey.
ELIMINATED: Snoopy Loopy, Nozic, Conna Castle
Three down - 85 left.


EVICTION TWO - "Missed the cut"
Places in the Grand National are like gold dust and only injury or extreme change in the ground is likely to force any of the horses to drop out. A maximum field of 40 is guaranteed and at this late stage anything below 55 in the leaderboard is unlikely to make the cut. So we are saying goodbye to the feather weights in our next elimination. It's the first cull and we say goodbye to 33 runners.
ELIMINATED: Iron Man, Mattock Ranger, Niche Market, Pomme Tiepy, Bagan, Beat The Boys, Bible Lord, Dix Villez, Flintoff (USA), Patsy Hall, In The Loop, King Harald, Nadover, Pak Jack, Seymour Weld, Nine De Sivola, Tom Sayers, Oodachee, Kings Advocate, Dun Doire, Le Toscan, Out The Black, Puntal, Without A Doubt, You're Special, Alexanderthegreat, Milan Deux Mille, Sandhurst, Lord Killeshanra, Lysander, Malko de Beaumont, Pass Me By, Mont Misere,
36 down - 52 left


EVICTION THREE - "Age of reason"
Every single winner since 1990 has been aged between eight and 12 so it's with some confidence we can rule out the seven-year-old under-graduates Big Fella Thanks and Can't Buy Time and the 13-year-old old Eurotrek.
ELIMINATED: Big Fella Thanks, Can't Buy Time, Eurotrek
39 down - 49 left


EVICTION FOUR - "Act Of God"
We simply don't get massive shocks any more - the fences are easier - there are additional 'warm-up' races staged over the National fences each year and generally a better class of horse is now aimed at the race. So it's now easier (but not easy) to predict than ever before. The biggest priced winner since 1970 was Last Suspect at 50/1 and the AVERAGE price of winners during that period has been 16.8/1. We're saying goodbye to anything priced bigger than clickety-click - 66/1.
ELIMINATED: Ollie Magern, Reveillez, Cornish Sett, Fleet Street, Himalayan Trail, Tumbling Dice, Arteea, Cerium, Idle Talk, Kelami, Zabenz, Companero, Afistfullofdollars, Chelsea Harbour, Roll Along, Stan, Offshore Account, L'ami, Maljimar
58 down - 30 left


EVICTION FIVE - "Running into form"
Looking back at previous Grand National winners they simply don't turn up out of form - even the bigger priced winners. Last year's winner Comply Or Die won at Newcastle on his previous start and the winner in 2007 Silver Birch was runner-up in his race before Aintree. Current well being is crucial and in the final eviction we are going to get brutal and rule out all runners who have failed to finish sixth or better last time out.
ELIMINATED: Knowhere, Hear The Echo, King Johns Castle, Mon Mome, Hobbs Hill, Battlecry, Always Waining, Hot Weld, Ice Tea, Preists Leap, Silver Birch, Fundamentalist, Golden Flight, Musica Bella
72 down - 16 left

That's it no more evictions and we are down to the final 16 and it's looking easier already ! The final few now progress to the 'play-offs' where we will pair them side-by-side in weight order and the winners will progress to the quarter-finals in our next article.

Last 16 Play-Offs - The Draw

(With latest Betfair prices next to each horse)

Cloudy Lane [55.0] v War Of Attrition [22.0]
Snowy Morning [36.0] v Comply Or Die [25.0]
Black Apalachi [15.5] v My Will [12.0]
State of Play [24.0] v Butler's Cabin [13.0]
Parsons Legacy [44.0] v Darkness [40.0]
Irish Invader [50.0] v Rambling Minster [14.5]
Southern Vic [19.5] v Kilbeggan Blade [30.0]
Brooklyn Brownie [50.0] v Character Building [15.5]