I wanted to look further than just simply running at the Cheltenham Festival though. I also wanted to check the record of those horses that WON at Cheltenham and then came on to run at Aintree.
Here's what my digging returned...
16/52 | 31% S/R | +£1.77 BFLSP
Win & Place 29/52 | 56% S/R
Or in other words 13% of Aintree winners WON at the Cheltenham Festival. Backing them all gave you a tasty enough strike-rate and a smidgen of profit to play with (worth noting, however, it wasn't a profit each of the last six years, obviously!).
If you want to tighten things up a bit further it's best to concentrate on those that won in a NON-Handicap at the Cheltenham Festival (13/28 | 46% S/R | +£9.19 BFLSP - W&P 21/28 | 75% S/R).
Certainly an angle to be keeping a close eye on although , as always, it will all depend on how many of the Irish winners make the trip back over in search of the Cheltenham/Aintree double.
Back to those Cheltenham winners though...
I took a closer look at the Cheltenham winners stats at Aintree and discovered the following two sub-angles...
Cheltenham winners running in Aintree Non-Handicaps (SP 9/2 or less)
15/28 | 54% S/R | +£12.90 BFLSP
Win & Place 21/28 | 75% S/R
Those starting at odds-on have returned the following form line... 111111F11 (8/9)
Cheltenham winners at Aintree over 2m4.5f+ trips
10/28 | 36% S/R | +£12.73 BFLSP
Win & Place 18/28 | 64% S/R
Won't make you rich(!?) but a hefty enough 36% strike-rate at play there...
Both interesting little sub-plots for those that like to dig a bit deeper.