Pineau De Re, owned by John Provan and trained by Dr Richard
Newland has triumphed in the 2014 Grand National and now has its name
immortalised on the Aintree honours board. The race proved to be tremendously
competitive this year but, the thirteenth fence apart, Leighton Aspell plotted Pineau’s
way around the traditionally tough course and staged a perfectly timed bid for
the front to take the prize by five lengths from Balthazar King.
The Grand National transcends racing in the UK and it seems
everyone takes an interest in the handicapped event, for many it’s their one
bet of the year. The enormous scale of the event, blanket media coverage and national
fervour surrounding the 167 year old race create a clamour for information,
stories and statistics. The rich history and substantial field of runners each
year certainly provide the statisticians with plenty of numbers to crunch. So,
here are just a few thrown up by the race.
As well as the 71,000 race goers who attended the event at
the Aintree course on Saturday, an estimated 600 million viewers watched the
race in 140 countries worldwide through officially syndicated transmissions.
Add to this figure many more watching illegally streamed or diverted satellite
feeds and the viewing figures could realistically be pushing a billion. That’s
one in seven people on the planet.
In the UK alone, approximately 37.5 million individual bets
were placed on the race, totalling in excess of £300 million, working out at
about £8 per bet. These figures don’t take into account bets placed with
unofficial, illegal bookmakers or money changing hands in private wagers.
Individuals methods of choosing a horse to bet on can vary
from the highly scientific to the downright random. For those punters wishing
to avoid the ‘blindfold & pin’ method it might be worth bearing in mind the
following stats. In the last 30 years of the race an 11 year old horse has won
on nine occasions, including Saturday. 9 and 10 year olds have won eight times
each in the same time period with no other age making much impact on the four
and a half miler.
12 times in the last thirty outings a horse going off
between 11-1 and 25-1 has taken the prize, with 10-1 or less winning on nine
occasions and horses between 26-1 and 50-1. There have been a couple of
fairytale results of more than 50-1 in this period, including Mon Mome at 100-1
in 2009, reinforcing the unpredictability of The National. In fact, the
favourite has met expectations on only eight occasions in the last 52 runs.
However, maybe there is something in a name. As was pointed
out to me recently a horse whose name is comprised of two words has won on
eighteen occasions in the last thirty outings. Statistics can be used to prove
anything of course.
The prize money for the race itself has grown over the last
25 years from £115,000 to the present day purse of £1 million. You might think
this is enough but this substantial reward hasn’t precluded owners from having
a wager as well. Two of the largest individual wins in the history of the event
have been placed by owners. In 2003 Mike Futter, owner of Monty’s Pass, took an
early price of 50-1 and placed £10,000 to win half a million when Barry
Geraghty guided home his charge.
This win was dwarfed by Edward Studd, the owner of the 1866
winner, Salamander. Mr Studd placed £1,000 on the race at 40-1, pocketing the
equivalent of £3 million in today’s money.
However, following the bad press concerning horse and jockey
safety in the late nineties and early two-thousands my favourite statistic from
yesterday’s race was that of the forty starters and eighteen finishers there
were zero fatalities and all the jockeys made it back to the weigh-in room in
one piece.
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