The Punters Guide to the Grand National

There is a new book called The Punters Guide to the Grand National and we have previewed the sailent points to assist you in trying to pick that elusive Grand National winner.

The books author is John Cottrell and he suggests that "the world's greatest steeplechase is no longer the betting world's biggest lottery".

Cottrell make a very sensible argument with his system, and like every sensible system, his appears to me to be designed to minimise potential losses. Basically, using his own statistics. Cottrell works his way through the declarations for the big race, eliminating in stages all but six horses from his calculations.

The reasons for elimination vary from the usual ones - form, going, can the horse go the distance? - to a horse carrying too much weight. Any entrant with over 11st 5lbs is ignored, but horses running from out of the handicap are not. Again that makes sense. Cottrell also dislikes French-bred animals, which is eminently sensible as no horse bred in France has won the National since Lutteur III in 1909.

Once Cottrell has his six horses, he bets £5 each-way on each of the six for a stake of £60. Last year he made a profit of £40.62, largely because the system yielded 11-1 winner Numbersixvalverde and he had only bet on the five runners that conformed to his system, rather than the usual six.

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We suggest that there are worse systems and maybe this might work for you whatever your system good luck.

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