Good Afternoon, Friend

To Aintree...

Below you can find a quick look at those five trainers with 5 or more winners at the last three Grand National meetings, I'm sure you can guess who they are...

I'm heading up to Liverpool again for the week, and can't wait. I haven't missed a GN meeting since 2008 (although for 9 years it was on my doorstep) and it's one of my favourite weeks of the year - usually socially more than punting success, maybe those two things are linked! I will likely be taking a 'light' approach on the blog but there's plenty of superb racing to look forward to more generally - for all the jumpers could do with some rain.

I always find it a much harder punting week than Cheltenham, my handicap trends work much better at HQ and I do find Aintree harder to read. I may not bother with Aintree trends this time around, I'm yet to decide.

Cheltenham Festival 2025...

Thankfully I landed on a couple of decent priced winners from my target races, and for Cheltenham ended up +10-11 points as advised.

If you had BOG on Doddie The Great ( roared home, 20s>25s SP) or got the best Betfair Exchange prices, you maybe doubled that to around +20 points. I know many of you did. It was pleasing to tip the biggest handicap winner of the week under a sublime Brian Hughes (I don't say that too often!)

I gave back x3 points in The Midland's National which was frustrating, leaving 'Festival Week' on around +8 points as advised, +17 or so for most. That took 'Festival Week' on my blog to around +202 points since 2016 

Solid, in what was generally a tough week. The main handicap winner that got away was arguably Jazzy Matty, on my trends shortlist, and I wasn't too far off. I took on a few of the 4/1< handicap winners, which proved an error, and was too far off a couple of them, but that's the game of course! A couple of fallers who were cruising at the time also. All in all, solid, if unspectacular, but profitable.

As is often the case it paid to be on lightly raced handicappers, and those very unexposed in handicaps.

It's been a solid jumps season to date on the blog, +63 points since Oct 1st at a 22% ROI, +133 points since mid March 2024, and I'll be doing my best to keep adding to the pile, with the usual ups and downs of course!

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To Aintree...

Aintree Trainers

Those trainers with 5 or more winners at the last three Festivals: Gordon Elliott, Nicky Henderson, Willie Mullins, Paul Nicholls, Dan Skelton

Gordon Elliott

• All non-handicaps

• 20/1 or shorter SP

• Of the below... 7/15,9p, Top 2 last start

25 bets / 8 wins / 14 places (inc wins) / +26 BFSP / +14 Betfair Place

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Nicky Henderson

• All runners

• 2/1 or shorter

7 wins (7/7) / +8 BFSP

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Willie Mullins

• Top 4 LTO

• 7/1 or shorter SP

19 bets / 8 wins / 13 places (inc wins) / +19 BFSP / +7 Betfair Place

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Paul Nicholls

• All runners

• Did NOT win LTO (1/14)

• 11/1 or shorter SP

16 bets / 4 wins / 12 places (inc wins) / +17 BFSP / +22 Betfair Place

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Dan Skelton

• All runners aged 6-8

• 15/2 or shorter SP

17 bets / 5 wins / 8 places (inc wins) / +21 BFSP / +2 Betfair Place

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Aintree is much closer to Cheltenham this year so we'll see what impact that has - it's always been hard to judge, horses who've seemingly had hard races at Cheltenham often win again at Aintree, and vice versa! One of the reasons it's so tricky no doubt, but hopefully the above angles may flag a few winners.

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Thanks for reading,

All the best,

Josh

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