Cheltenham to Aintree - A positive or a negative?

Published: Tue, 04/05/16

After my Willie Mullins inspired post yesterday I decided to do a bit of extra digging into the Aintree stats using my trusted Proform database.

I wanted to look further into the record of those horses that had their last start prior to Aintree at the Cheltenham Festival.

I wanted to find out if Cheltenham exertions left a horse below par for their desired Aintree target.

Even though I've already done hours of digging about in the trends and stats for my Aintree Mini Angles there is always plenty to be gained from a bit more digging around and this specific angle is likely to be half-heartedly talked about in the media during the Aintree Festival, generally by people giving opinion rather than hard facts. I'm never too interested in that, I prefer the facts rather than some snappy sound-bite from a presenter.

So here goes...

I looked at the last six Aintree Grand National Festivals.

In that period there have been 126 races with 1945 runners, producing 126 winners (obviously!) and 387 win and places horses.

Here is the record of those runners that had their LAST START at the Cheltenham Festival...

75/686 | 11% S/R | +£85.68 BFLSP

Win & Place 195/686 | 28% S/R

That's a huge 35% of Aintree runners having their last run at the Cheltenham Festival.

What is perhaps more astonishing, however, is that 60% of Aintree winners had their last start at the Cheltenham Festival!

A pretty fair indicator that anyone saying that a run at the Cheltenham Festival is a negative for those that come on to the Aintree equivalent. 

It quite clearly isn't a negative.
 
 
I wanted to look further than just simply running at the Cheltenham Festival though. Wary of the Mullins angle yesterday (his poor record at Aintree Grand National meeting) 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...

18/56 | 32% S/R | +£32.33 BFLSP

Win & Place 34/56 | 61% S/R

Or in other words 14% of Aintree winners WON at the Cheltenham Festival. Backing them all gave you a tasty strike-rate and a healthy little profit.

That's where the Mullins stats maybe get a bit muddied. He seems to be planning on sending a number of his Cheltenham winners to Aintree and we now know that Cheltenham winners have a solid record when looking to follow up at Aintree (they actually strike 33% better than expected). 

Hmmm... be interesting to see how that plays out...

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 at Aintree in Non-Handicaps

16/39 | 41% S/R | +£12.63 BFLSP

Win & Place 27/39 | 69% S/R

Cheltenham winners at Aintree over Hurdles

12/28 | 43% S/R | +£35.97 BFLSP

Win & Place 20/28 | 71% S/R

Both interesting little sub-plots for those that like to dig a bit deeper.

Combining the two improves the strike-rates but does admittedly slacken up the LSP figure somewhat...

Chelt winners at Aintree in Non-Hcp Hurdles

10/21 | 48% S/R | +£6.28 BFLSP

Win & Place 16/21 | 76% S/R

 
 
 

All very interesting I'm sure you will agree and if you hear anyone saying a run or indeed a win at Cheltenham is a negative when coming on to Aintree then just bear the above stats in mind.


Only question now is will the Mullins trend crack first or the Cheltenham run last time out crack first!!


(of course all the other Cheltenham winners could score at Aintree and the Mullins runners all bomb!! Which would be interesting!!).


Let the fun begin...







Ben (NTF)


All stats sourced from the excellent Proform Professional database





























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