Aintree Grand National Trends To Consider Before Placing Your Bet

With the 2024 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.

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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 13 of the last 15 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 Succeed

The Grand National is not a great race for favourite backers, so much so that only four winners since the turn of the century were sent off a single-figure price with betting apps.

Tiger Roll (2019) and Corach Rambler (2023) were the only winning favourites 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 2024 Grand National so horses towards the top of the weights should be avoided.