My twopenneth worth

For what it's worth, here are my thoughts on the GN.

I've backed in and studied the GN for the last 20 years.  Over that time, I have had to make adjustments to the trends I use to find the winner.  I have slightly amended certain ones over the past couple of years due to obvious developments with the handicapping of the great race.

Anyways, with the tweaking and adjusting, I have been quite successful, with 3 out of the last 5 winners, Silver Birch, Comply or Die and Ballabriggs.  If anyone thinks I'm after timing here then fair enough, don't read anymore of this thread.


Ok, so onto this year.  Firstly I have a few principles I always adhere to:

Not French bred, not grey, not a mare, not a second season chaser, not finished the race in previous years (fallers have a better record next time), and exclude horses who havent won over 3 miles.

People can take issue with any of these, I am fine with that, but until a grey french bred mare who finished 10th last year and won a 2 mile hcap chase, wins the GN then I'm sticking by my guns.  Obviously Mon Mome was a massive trend buster for me, but I viewed him as the exception rather than the rule.

Applying these principles and then some other stats I use, I can create a shortlist of roughly 5 or 6.  Last year, the list was West End Rocker, Grand Slam Hero, Ballabriggs, Can't Buy Time, Northern Alliance and Ballytrim.

So for this year, applying all I've learnt over the past few years, I have a definitve shortlist of 4:
West End Rocker, Always Right, Cappa Bleu and Postmaster.

Hope this helps