What makes you pick your National runner?
Sixty per cent of us will have a flutter on the Grand National this weekend, but it seems that some of us employ less than scientific powers when picking our hurdle hopeful, says a new survey.
On-line bookie giant Blue Square canvassed over 3000 regular and occasional punters and came up with some fascinating results.
According to their data 40 per cent of northerners reckon they’d back a grey horse - compared to 24 per cent of southern gamblers.
Meanwhile pretty silks are what catch the ladies’ eyes – 68 per cent of women in the survey said they’d rather bet on a jockey wearing attractive colours, such as the green, white and yellow of 2005 winner Hedgehunter - rather than the predominantly black colours of last year’s winner Silver Birch.
“Professionals often scoff at these methods of choosing horses in the Grand National but we shouldn’t forget that over 50 per cent of bets on the race come from once a year punters and their bets have a direct influence on the market", said Blue Square’s George Primarolo.
"This could explain why horses with predominantly black colours - such as 1987 winner Maori Venture and last year’s winner Silver Birch - went off at 28/1 and 33/1 respectively, whilst grey horses such as Suny Bay were always so well supported despite never winning the race.
"This year’s favourite, Cloudy Lane, runs in the same colourful silks as Hedgehunter, so we’re expecting plenty of support from the ladies as well as the form students."
However, the survey revealed that choosing a horse by its name was still the most popular method for many punters, with 64 per cent saying they’d often back a horse with either a boy or a girl’s name in it.
Nevertheless, with only Bobbyjo and Monty’s Pass winning for this particular method in recent years, it’s not proved to be the most profitable.
A jockey wearing a red cap could well prove to be their saviour. In the last 20 years, a third of all National winners have worn this colour cap, which bodes well for the likes of Mr Pointment and Turko this year, though the latter will have to try and break the race’s legendary grey horse hoodoo.
In almost 50 years only one grey has managed to pass the post in front – Nicolaus Silver back in 1961 – so punters may need to look elsewhere for inspiration this time around.
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April 2nd 2008
