Aintree© Photo Healy Racing
The current betting for next Month's Randox Health Grand National at Aintree is dominated by horses that performed well at last week's Cheltenham Festival.
Horses like Anibale Fly (third in Gold Cup), Total Recall (in touch when falling 3 out in Gold Cup), Tiger Roll (Won Cross Country Chase) and Rathvinden (Won National Hunt Chase) are all vying for favouritism for next month's race. See all the latest betting options for the race here: bet on Grand National
But Cheltenham form is not necessarily a positive when it comes to the unique challenges of Aintree.
Only three of the last ten winners of the Grand National ran at Cheltenham and none of those three actually won at the previous month's Festival. 2015 winner Many Clouds had finished sixth in that year's Cheltenham Gold Cup while the other two recent winners to race at Cheltenham both ran over hurdles at the Festival. Pineau de Re finished third in the 2014 Pertemps Hurdle Final while 2010 Grand National winner Don't Push It was pulled up in the same Hurdles race prior to his Aintree success.
No horse in recent times has managed to win at the Cheltenham Festival and win the Aintree Grand National in the same calendar year. The closest any horses have come are Silver Birch in 2007 when second in the Cross Country Chase and Rough Quest in 1996 which was runner-up in that year's Gold Cup before winning the Grand National.
Previous form over the unique Aintree fences is probably a better guide to which horse will win this year's Grand National.
Three of the last four winners of the big race had previous form over the Grand National fences — One For Arthur, Many Clouds and Pineau de Re.
Blaklion and The Last Samurai finished first and second in the Becher Chase over the course in December and having swerved Cheltenham in favour of a tilt at the Grand National would look like obvious contenders this time around.
The 2018 Aintree Grand National takes place at 5:15pm on Saturday 14th April.
