Grand National Trends - Age and Experience

The Grand National is just over 2 weeks away and now is the time to whittle the 75 (current) entries down to something more managable like 5. I'm sure this is written every year, but the GN is the most unique race in the world. Its a handicap run over the extremes of 4m4f and 30 pretty tough fences with a probable field of 40 runners. You need luck, skill and a horse with a good engine, but the same things seem to happen year by year. Today we are going to take out horses whose proflie hasn't won for a pretty long time.

List of entries:

Age
The Grand National has been run since 1840 and in this time the age of the winning horses has varied between 5 and 15. However 5yo aren't allowed to run any more and now that the race is hugely competative, no horse younger than 8 has won since 1940 when Bogskar triumphed. Sergeant Murphy (aged 13) won the race in 1923. Every winner in the last 69 years has been aged between 8-12.

In the last 10 years there have been 39 horses aged 6-7 & 13+ and none have placed, not one. Young horses haven't built up the required stamina to win this race, older horses have the stamina, but are on the downgrade and aren't fast enough to compete at the top end. In fact 12yo horses have a poor record as well, just 1 win and 1 place from 29 runners. Amberleigh House (12) won in 2004, but he was trained by Ginger McCain (Red Rum's trainer) and had a much better profile than many 12yo's. I will keep in 12yo but they should generally be opposed.

The best ages for a winner is 9 and 10, having won 11 of the last 14 races. This year we can scratch out a number of horses, including Cheltenham Gold Cup flop and former favourite, Tricky Trickster.

Out (9 horses)
6yo Galant Nuit
7yo Tricky Trickster, Deutschland, Piraya, The Package, Palypso De Creek, Belon Gale, Pomme Tiepy
13yo Silver Birch (2007 winner)

Experience
Horses that win the Grand National have to have experience of jumping fences. Obviously horses that are younger won't have that experience, if you think that Tricky Trickster has raced only 6 times over fences, you'll know what a strange over-hyped favourite he was for this race.

Miinnehoma (1994) won the Grand National on his 10th chase start. Even that is quite unusual, since then, the minimum amount has been 10, but for this case I will keep in the 9s just in case the horses run again in the next 2 weeks.

Out (4 horses)
Horses with less than 9 chase starts:
Backstage (8), Dooneys Gate (6), Whinestone Boy (6), Treacle (8). We've already lost Tricky Trickster (6), Deutchland (8), The Package (8), Galent Nuit (8) and Belon Gale (7), but this is double bubble if you like.

Horses with 9 chase starts:
Ballyfitz, Equus Maximus, Abbeybraney, Offaly.
These can be considered for removal and hopefully we'll find other trends to remove them later.

There is no upper limit to the amount of races a horse has, although they'll generally be older and more exposed and probably in the handicapper's grip. Monty's Pass (41) and Amberleigh House (34) have to most in the last 20 years.

62 horses left, next time, we'll address the weight trend.