The world’s most famous horse race takes place at Aintree on Saturday and people up and down the country will be having their one bet of the year. Sellers of SP’s will be hoping the money continues to come for hot favourite Cloudy Lane and that he becomes only the third favourite in the last 11 runnings to win. Buyers of SP’s will be pleased to hear though that in the past 10 years, two horses have won at 16/1, one at 20/1 and a further two at 33/1, including last year’s winner Silver Birch. The weight a horse is allotted can have a huge effect on its winning chances and only one of the past 23 winners has carried more than 11stone to victory. Nine-year-olds are the most successful age group having won eight of the last 29 years.

Sporting Index trade a number of special markets on the National and one of the most popular markets is the total number of finishers. The ground often plays a crucial role in the number that finish and if it comes up very soft, those selling at 14.5 will be hoping for a tidy profit. However, in the past 10 years there have been total finishers of 17, 18 and 21 which will be more to the liking of buyers at 15.5, whilst there have been three occasions when a single-figure field have finished since Earth Summit’s win in 1998. Many punters will also be interested in the winning distance market, as these can vary quite dramatically. Silver Birch only won by ¾ of a length last year and four of the past ten winners have won by 3 lengths or less which will be just the result for those selling at 7.5. However, buyers will take great encouragement from 50% of the winners in the last decade winning by 10 lengths or more.