Grand National

The Grand National meeting is three days of top-class jump racing at Aintree, but it exists almost entirely in the shadow of one race on the Saturday - the National itself, the biggest betting race of the year in Britain and the one event that gets a punt out of people who never bet on anything else.

What makes it different

Unlike Cheltenham, where the crowd is largely knowledgeable regulars, the National is a genuine mass-participation betting event - office sweepstakes, one-off flutters, and a TV audience many times the size of any other jumps race. That changes the market: fancied horses can be over-bet relative to their true chance simply because they're well-known, while the sheer size of the field (up to 34 runners over Aintree's unique fences) makes it one of the hardest races in the calendar to predict with confidence.

Key races

The Grand National itself, over four and a quarter miles and 30 fences including Becher's Brook and The Chair, is the showpiece, run on the Saturday. The meeting also stages the Aintree Hurdle and the Bowl Chase on the Thursday and Friday, both genuine championship-level races in their own right that tend to get overshadowed by what follows.

Betting angle

Stamina and jumping technique matter more in the National than raw class - many National winners aren't the best-rated horse in the field, they're the one that stays the trip and jumps cleanly over a unique test that catches out plenty of well-fancied runners. With such a large field, each-way and place bets are the standard approach rather than betting to win outright, and it's worth checking a horse's jumping record over National-style fences specifically, not just its overall form figures.