Different Class

Form Figures (part one)

With only two days to go until the big race it's about time to get down to the business end and start narrowing the field to our shortlist of potential winners.  To do this we need to scrutinise the factor that should matter above all other - form.

There are three important criteria that need to be applied to each of the contenders due to line up on Saturday:

- Have they won a Class 1 or Class 2 Chase?
- Have they won a race contested by 10 or more runners?
- Have they got placed form this season?

If the answer is 'no' to any of the above, then they can be eliminated.  But above all the most important consideration is class.  There may have been a number of shock results in the Grand National in the last twenty years, but regardless of whether or not they were fancied to win, all of them had previously won a Class 1 or Class 2 Chase.

Now, as you'd expect, for a race of this calibre there are actually very few horses that have not won at the pre-requisite level.  The vast majority of horses qualify, but we can still discount these five horses in the bottom half of the handicap:

Hawkes Point
Vesper Bell
Rose Of The Moon
Last Time D'Albain
One In A Milan

It is with great reluctance that we reject the Welsh National runner-up Hawkes Point, but he does look too inexperienced for the hurly burly of Aintree.  He has also not won a race under rules with 10 or more runners, a comment that also applies to the following quartet:

Rocky Creek
Vintage Star
Kruzhlinin
Vesper Bell

Although some of the same names keep cropping up, we're starting to reduce the number of hopefuls down to a manageable short list.  In the next post we will look at current season form to see if we can cut this down even further.