This years Grand National proved once again that in big races you can always find good value bets. Even though one of the favourites one, (Comply or Die), the starting price of 7/1 was pretty good value.

At those odds, it is always possible to have three or more win bets and still come out in front if one of them wins. Add to that some of the special offers this year like the money back if your bet falls and suddenly the odds are much more in your favor than the bookmakers.

Obviously the Grand National is a unique race with a large number of starters and so many obstacles to clear. However most big races do often turn up so good value runners. If you accept that only around 40% of favourites win, the chances are you can get onto one of those good value runners and make a nice profit.

Big races always lend themselves to multiple bets and, except on rare occasions when you get an exceptional horse, the odds are often going to be in your favor.

Even if your just an occasional punter, having a plan that you can stick to will nearly always see you in front. Stick to some of those big races with big fields and long odds the field and you use your multiple bet options to the max.

The Grand National is getting closer and as it does the betting options and betting promotions are starting to come in thick and fast. The latest promotion is from Victor Chandler and as the name of this post implies, they are prepared to refund your bet if your horse falls in the big race.

There are of course terms and conditions:

Grand National Free Fall
1. Maximum refund is £50 per person per runner. £300 per person in total.
2. Also applies to Unseated Rider, Brought Down, Refused or Slipped Up.
3. Applies to bets placed from Monday 31st March. Does not apply to bets placed before 31st March.
4. Applies to win only and each way bets
5. Applies to singles only placed via Telephone, Internet or Mobile.
6. Free bets will be credited within 48 hours and can be placed on any event of choice.

That sounds like a pretty fair bet to me – The Grand National – I cannot wait.

Paddy Power are at it again – giving you real value for money during the month of April. For starters, if one of your selection finishes 2nd, beaten up to and including a neck, in any horse race in Ireland or the UK with a scheduled OFF time of 6pm or later, they will refund your losing single stake. This special offer does not include tote bets.

You can add to this their handicap special. Any handicap that has 22 or more starters will pay out on five places. Once again, Ireland or the UK for the month of April and there must be 22 or more actual starters, tote bets not included.

For the Grand National itself they have the following offer:

Grand National Sale – 10% Bonus on Winnings

We will add a 10% Bonus to your Winnings on all Single Bets in the 2008 Aintree Grand National. Applies to bets placed from 10am 1st April. Conditions

Aintree Grand National!
Extra Place Conditions
Non Runner No Bet and Extra Place concession applies to bets placed after 8am Wednesday 27th March.
Rule 4 will not apply until the final declaration stage (10am 3rd April).
Extra Place Does not apply to tote bets.
Paddy Power Horse Racing rules apply.

10% Bonus Conditions
Applies to bets placed after 10am on Tuesday 1st April 2008.
Excludes tote bets.
Max bonus per customer is €300/£200.
Win and each way singles only.

This would be a great opportunity to visit Paddy Power and check out their special offers for yourself.

The Grand National is just around the corner and the ante post odds are starting to firm up. Scheduled to be run on April 5 this year, the 161st running of the great race promises to be as exciting and as thrilling as every other year.

The fun starts on Thursday April 3. Once again, the total prize money for the John Smith’s Grand National meeting has risen, this year by a staggering £240,000 with £2,285,000 (€3,575,000) to be won over the three-day meeting

Cloudy Lane is the early favourite showing around the 6 or 6.5 mark with the next best showing around 10 or 12 mark. As we all know anything can happen in these types of races so find your favourite horse or two and have a bit of punt.

One of things I like about big races with big fields and long odds the field is that you can have two or three or more bets and still make a profit if you select the winner. Fancy bets always pay much higher in this type of event as well.

BestBetting have all the odds from the leading books so you can do a comparison to find the best value. UK Betting Central have all latest Grand National news whilst here at Gambling Tips Blog we will keep you up to date with any special offers as they are announced.

How many grey winners have there been in the Grand national? Just two. All the other horses were a variety of colours, but not grey. The first grey winner was The Lamb. He won the race

twice, once in 1868 and again in 1871. It took almost 100 year before the next grey winner emerged, Nicolaus Silver in 1960.

The Lamb was a small pony of a horse. he had an interesting early life:

“…he was not thought to be big enough to contest racing and was sold to a vet who acquired the horse for his daughter who was suffering of consumption, who needed to get into the open air. However the horse was not ridden by his daughter as the horse was too frisky for her, as his once jumping out of his paddock was to show.” www.grand-national-world.co.uk/gnw/the_race/tales/lamb.html

The vet was impressed by the friskiness of the horse. He decided to put him into training. Later The Lamb was raced in some Irish races and had a level of success too.

“…he was entered in the 1868 national which he won by a short distance on a day when the ground was very muddy.

“Because of a clerical error when his age was incorrectly supplied, he had to miss the following years race. He then contracted a wasting disease and was not to race for two years and he wasted away to nothing.” www.grand-national-world.co.uk/gnw/the_race/tales/lamb.html

In 1871 he was back. He won the race a second time and went into the history books – the only grey to win the National twice.

You can learn more about the Grand National at www.grand-national-betting.net

People bet on the Grand National on a whim sometimes. I recall in 1969, my sister was preparing for her wedding in the summer, and we decided to place a bet on the National taking place later that day. My future brother-in-law and myself scanned the list of runners, considered the odds offered, read all about the form, and tried to come to an educated decision on the most likely winner.

My sister on the other hand saw one horse named Highland Wedding, and as she was to be married in the north of Scotland, decided on the strength of that alone to place a sizeable bet on that horse. To cut a long story short – we lost, she won. And the really maddening bit was that she was in no way surprised either. She called it “fate” or something similar. Maybe she was right.

In 1991 I was in a bar on the day of the Grand National with a friend. It was busy and we were idly chatting about all kinds of things. I noticed that the top shelf behind the bar had a sizeable collection of American whiskies, and we started to talk about our limited experience of drinking them.

That day I had little to no interest on the National. I’d placed too many losing bets on it in the past, so we chatted about American whiskey instead. I noticed one bottle, Seagram 7 Crown Whiskey, and mentioned that it was one I hadn’t tasted. A rather tipsy man next to me said, “Yes, I just put a bet on him.” I ignored him, and only later realised that Seagram was not only running in the race, but he won it too. I should have paid better attention to the coincidence…

So, don’t be like me and lose Grand National bets. Check out Grand-National-Betting.net where they have most of the answers, if not all of them. And above all, have fun on the day!

Cloister. It sounds like something medieval, something involving a holy order, but it is in fact a horse. Well, it was a horse, for he had his hey day in 1893, and now he’s gone where the good horse go, content to know that in that year of 1893, he was the one who won the Grand National!

It wasn’t his first attempt at the Grand National. He’d already come in second on two occasions. Surely he was pipped as the most likely to win, which of course he did.

“When the horses jumped off at the start there was the usual charge for this first fence but by the time the field reached the second Cloister was ahead and just kept on going putting more and more distance between him and the rest of the field and he went on to eventually win by a massive 40 lengths the biggest winning margin ever.” source: http://www.grand-national-world.co.uk/gnw/the_race/tales/cloister.html

Did you notice that last bit? I mean, 40 lengths! that’s a fair distance to put between himself and the rest of the pack. He could have stopped to much some grass for a minute or two, and still romped in first. Cloister was obviously quite a horse.

You can get the latest news on the all the Grand National latest at Aintree.co.uk And if you fancy a flutter on the big day, head over to Grand-National-Betting.net

There are 16 of them on the famous Grand National Aintree course. The first one is a “mere” 4 foot 6 inches in height. It’s a fairly easy one that is apt ot give jockeys and horses alike a false sense of security about what lies ahead.

Fence number two is only one inch higher, so again, most of the competitors make it. Then comes an awkard open ditch. The horse has to jump over a six foot wide ditch before leaping and clearing a 5 foot fence. Not always easy…

“Anyone who does not know about racing may think that an open ditch fence has a fence and then a ditch but this is not the case, The ditch is in front of the fence so the horse has to jump the ditch before the fence this obviously sometimes means that if the horse has misjudged the jump he may get his legs in the ditch this usually gives him no chance of negotiating the fence.” www.grand-national-world.co.uk

Fences numer four and five are getting progressively higher, when suddenly it’s fence number six and Bechers Brook. This is a 5 foot fence followed by a 5 foot 6 inch brook; the horse must clear each of them, of course.

The course meanders on, through fences and ditches and water jumps. Horses fall, jockeys fall too. Winners fall back, losers suddenly find themselves as winners, and oft times a riderless horse wins the race. This is the Grand National. Don’t miss it…

It was Charlotte Brew who was the first one, back in 1977. It had to happen sometime. Everyone knew that. But, to be honest, most people wondered why it took so long for Charlotte, or someone like her, to be the first.

We’re talking about the first woman jockey to ride in the Grand National. But you knew that of course. You did, didn’t you?

It all seems so obvious now that a woman, should she choose to, and if she can qualify, should naturally compete in any race, including the Grand National. But it wasn’t always so. Even in 1977 there were many who didn’t take her seriously.

“Charlotte did not have an easy time getting to ride in the Grand National, it was in 1976 when the equal opportunities legislation came into force and there was to be no discrimination in the jockeys for the Grand National.” www.grand-national-world.co.uk

Charlotte didn’t complete the race. Her horse, Barony Fort, fell close to the finish. It never really stood any chance of winning. But that wasn’t the point. Charlotte actually did better than a number of her male colleagues. Not good enough to stand out particularly, but she was noticed.

Five years later, another woman, Geraldine Rees, became the first of her sex to actually complete the Grand National riding a horse named Cheers. She didn’t win. In fact, she came in last. But she completed the race. And Charlotte of course didn’t have much chance of winning either, given that the winner in 1977 was a horse named Red Rum who won for the third time in a row.

It’s the most spectacular National Hunt race in the whole of the UK. It generates the most money and attracts the most viewers. It’s the Grand National, of course!

There are people who never every consider betting who faithfully have a small flutter on the National. It’s a kind of tradition with many, a kind of British must-do type of thing. Of course, the vast majority of them win nothing whatsoever. But that’s not the point when you have a stiff upper lip.

The Grand National is probably the horse race that has had more riderless horses win than any other race. Year after year horse unseat their jockeys at fences, and romp along with the rest of the pack. Not having that extra weight to carry, they do quite well, often winning without knowing they have won.

“(The Grand National) is run over two circuits of Aintree’s National Course, on which there are sixteen fences. All except The Chair and the Water-Jump are jumped twice. Some fences have acquired near-legendary status for their severity, particularly Becher’s Brook and The Chair, although in recent years this severity has been much reduced due to pressure from various animal rights groups. The National is the centerpiece of a three-day meeting, one of only four run at Aintree in the racing season.” Wikipedia.com

Why not place a bet this April on the Grand National. UK Betting Central have all the information and advice you will ever need.