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The 2025 Welsh Grand National Handicap Chase

With Jonjo nearly pulling off a big handicap double at Ascot. Thoughts are turned to the Welsh National. Iron Bridge has had 2 cracks at it ( a bit off putting ). He's handicapped to run well though. 25s at the moment. No vet yet.
 
This is off the Bet365 ante-post listing for Saturday's race, and the field has been whittled down to just 22 at the five-day entry stage. I expect the Racing Post website will be updated very shortly. The maximum field size is 20, and the ground is currently soft ( good to soft in places ).

In order of betting: Jubilee Express (5/1f), Mr Vango, Git Maker, Haiti Couleurs, O'Connell, Rock My Way (8/1), Collectors Item, Deafening Silence, Intense Raffles, Dom Of Mary, Uncle Bert, Nassalam, Hung Jury, Livin On Luco, Where It All Began, De Legislator, Monbeg Genius, Tanganyika, Beaufort Scale, Pats Fury, Holokea, Onethreefivenotout.
 
22 confirmed entries.

Intense Raffles Tom Gibney
Haiti Couleurs Rebecca Curtis
Mr Vango Sara Bradstock
Nassalam Gary and Josh Moore
Monbeg Genius Jonjo and AJ O'Neill
Rock My Way Joe Tizzard
Tanganyika Venetia Williams
Collectors Item Jonjo and AJ O'Neill
Git Maker Jamie Snowden
Uncle Bert Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies
O'Connell Joel Parkinson and Sue Smith
Deafening Silence Dan Skelton
Where It All Began Gordon Elliott
Livin On Luco Philip Hobbs and Johnson White
Dom Of Mary James Owen
Hung Jury Martin Keighley
Jubilee Express Sam Thomas
Beaufort Scale Gordon Elliott
Pats Fancy Rebecca Curtis
Holokea Mickey Bowen
De Legislator Lucinda Russell and Michael Scudamore
Onethreefivenotout Gordon Elliott
 
The Decs tracker went live at 8am - whereas in Ireland they've known who runs at Leopardstown tomorrow for days, here in Blighty it's a one-off 24-hour declaration stage today for Saturday.
 
19 declared.

Intense Raffles Bryony Frost
Haiti Couleurs Sean Bowen
Mr Vango Jack Tudor
Nassalam Caoilin Quinn
Monbeg Genius Jonjo O'Neill Jr
Rock My Way Brendan Powell
Tanganyika Charlie Deutsch
Uncle Bert Sam Twiston-Davies
O'Connell Danny McMenamin
Collectors Item Kevin Brogan
Git Maker Gavin Sheehan
Deafening Silence Tristan Durrell
Jubilee Express Kielan Woods
Where It All Began Conor O'Farrell
Livin On Luco Callum Pritchard (3)
Dom Of Mary Richie McLernon
Hung Jury Tom Bellamy
Beaufort Scale Paddy Hanlon (5)
Pats Fancy Jamie Brace (5)

Betting: Link to follow
 
Well I've narrowed it down to about 9.
I've added jubilee express But it is short.Sam Thomas must be confident to get it a penalty and not put his claimer up.
Should be a cracking race with 2 Irish national winners,the 1st and 2nd in last year's Midlands national, a Welsh national winner and a 2nd.
1st and 2nd in the London national plus the winner of the Sussex national.

Rock my way
Jubilee express
Dom of Mary
 
Having waited until the final decs to make sure I was on a runner, I missed the price on Rock My Way.

So, I've done a Robert Maxwell and "borrowed" Walsworth's entire pension fund to make sure I stand to win the same sum despite the reduced odds on offer.
 
Ian_Davies said:
Having waited until the final decs to make sure I was on a runner, I missed the price on Rock My Way.

So, I've done a Robert Maxwell and "borrowed" Walsworth's entire pension fund to make sure I stand to win the same sum despite the reduced odds on offer.
Click to expand...

The question should always be where the price is going, not where it came from. If it goes off at 7/2, then 11/2 is mighty fine.
 
Slim said:
The question should always be where the price is going, not where it came from. If it goes off at 7/2, then 11/2 is mighty fine.
Click to expand...
Well, there's that, plus (given I seldom trade out for a bet to nothing or smaller bet at longer average odds) there's what price I make it.

In extremis, I've seen horses I make 6/1 at 16/1, thought: "that's mad" and taken it, seen them bet down to 9/4, and thought: "that's equally mad."

I respect the historical efficiency of the market and am never unhappy to see a horse I've bet collapse in price, but sometimes I just think horses get overbet, bandwagon, money chasing money stuff, and the shortening price isn't always correlating to an increased chance of winning.

Funnily enough, I was on the phone to someone last night and said: "How many times do punters not bet a horse because it's 10/1 and they missed 16s? If they make it significantly shorter than tens, they should stop sulking and take the tens."
 
Ian_Davies said:
Well, there's that, plus (given I seldom trade out for a bet to nothing or smaller bet at longer average odds) there's what price I make it.

In extremis, I've seen horses I make 6/1 at 16/1, thought: "that's mad" and taken it, seen them bet down to 9/4, and thought: "that's equally mad."

I respect the historical efficiency of the market and am never unhappy to see a horse I've bet collapse in price, but sometimes I just think horses get overbet, bandwagon, money chasing money stuff, and the shortening price isn't always correlating to an increased chance of winning.

Funnily enough, I was on the phone to someone last night and said: "How many times do punters not bet a horse because it's 10/1 and they missed 16s? If they make it significantly shorter than tens, they should stop sulking and take the tens."
Click to expand...

Imo you should be beating isp on avg.

But you've raised an interesting question do those that have drifted to say evens, stayed at evens or shortened to evens all have the same chance in reality? I.e. if you looked at the long term strike rates of those 3 scenarios what would you see?
 
pawras said:
Imo you should be beating isp on avg.

But you've raised an interesting question do those that have drifted to say evens, stayed at evens or shortened to evens all have the same chance in reality? I.e. if you looked at the long term strike rates of those 3 scenarios what would you see?
Click to expand...
There's a very nice chap who I've known since the 1990s who works in the betting industry in marketing and, unlike a lot of such people, he has a genuine knowledge of racing and betting and could have just as easily become a racing journalist.

He's very interested in this sort of thing and once told me he'd seen charts of records dating back to WWII which illustrate how efficient the betting market is when it comes to the industry SP.

3/1 shots since WWII do that bit better than 100/30 shots, 9/2 shots do that bit worse than 4/1 shots etc.

If you blindly bet any horse at any specific SP you'd be behind - no reason to suspect it's any different for the BSP.

IIRC I asked him the same question about the journey to the SP, drift, shorten, or steady - he said it was a good question and he hadn't seen figures for that, but would like to!

The shrewdest and most successful punter I ever met (and I've met a few such people) ran a data model on Betfair and he too had huge respect for market efficiency - if his model (based on about 90 factors taken from 15,000 co efficients he'd examined) threw up a bet he'd have more on it the shorter price it was when he got involved (about a minute before the Off due to his volume).

It contradicted the Classic, purist, "the bigger the price, the bigger the bet" mantra of some older punters - I personally think there's a time and a place for both as the market doesn't always know, especially in niche markets, the market thinks it knows, but sometimes it really and clearly doesn't.

Anyway, this guy steadily ground out profits on a tiny ROI and said, if he started with a grand bank on 1st January, if he never skimmed the account to live on, he'd expect it to be a million by 31st December.

And everything I saw in my time with him validated it - I learned more off that guy in a year than I did in 20 at places like the Racing Post, or even working for bookmakers.
 
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Ian_Davies said:
Well, there's that, plus (given I seldom trade out for a bet to nothing or smaller bet at longer average odds) there's what price I make it.

In extremis, I've seen horses I make 6/1 at 16/1, thought: "that's mad" and taken it, seen them bet down to 9/4, and thought: "that's equally mad."

I respect the historical efficiency of the market and am never unhappy to see a horse I've bet collapse in price, but sometimes I just think horses get overbet, bandwagon, money chasing money stuff, and the shortening price isn't always correlating to an increased chance of winning.

Funnily enough, I was on the phone to someone last night and said: "How many times do punters not bet a horse because it's 10/1 and they missed 16s? If they make it significantly shorter than tens, they should stop sulking and take the tens."
Click to expand...
Guilty 🤣
 
pawras said:
Imo you should be beating isp on avg.

But you've raised an interesting question do those that have drifted to say evens, stayed at evens or shortened to evens all have the same chance in reality? I.e. if you looked at the long term strike rates of those 3 scenarios what would you see?
Click to expand...

I’ve seen massive datasets on this. There will obviously be outliers, but in the main the overwhelming majority of punters make their long-term profits from horses that shorten in the betting. They lose money on horses that drift, although best odds guaranteed (BOG) does negate some of the downside. BOG is worth about 2% on a punter’s ROI over time. The old adage that the bigger the price, the bigger the bet is quite simply mathematical horse shit.
 
I've found that a small drift is ok but once it goes beyond a certain amount it's nearly always goodnight vienna and it's worth considering trading out to reduce the loss
 
Slim said:
The old adage that the bigger the price, the bigger the bet is quite simply mathematical horse shit.
Click to expand...
I think overall - and in the long term - that is undoubtedly true, but I can think of niche markets where the market was simply wrong.

Like Premier Magic 200 on the machine for the Foxhunters' after it had crucified Law Of Gold at Garthorpe, or 130 Torquator Tasso for the Arc in once-in-a-generation terrible ground at Longchamp.

Those two won, obviously plenty don't, but there are times when there is stuff beyond the data the data models and the vast majority of the betting industry have access to.

Plenty say that's bollocks and on those occasions, I just got lucky - maybe so, but 50 years is a long time to be lucky, so I maintain there is a time and a place for both mantras.
 

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