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Today saw an absolutely spiffing lunch at The Savoy supplemented by the revealing of the 2013 Grand National weights. Regular blog readers will know my poker analogy of the National. The hands are dealt when the first entries are made ... The 'flop' comes from the announcement of the weights today ... Then the 'river' cards are shown between now and post time where contenders run and can show how well handicapped they are. Of course some 'players' can bluff until the big day itself.
Looking through the weights there is always opinion and conjecture but right at the head of the list is Tidal Bay, who starts us off on a contreversial footing. Simon Cowell (as I like to call the BHA handicapper Phil Smith) has rightly allocated this fella top weight ... But has then compressed everything to him by around 9 pounds. At the 22-ish to 1 available on Betfair he is an immediate stand-out bet and I have invested. I'd rate him around a 12-1 shot but if Ruby jumps on board, he could go off as short as 7-1 on the day. High weights are becoming less of a hindrance these days as the quality of entries increases. Gone are the days of 'Peaty Sandy' running from nearly 3 stone out of the handicap.
I'll do some further analysis over the coming days but my initial shortlist comprises of Teaforthree, Magnanimity, Joncol, Cappa Bleu, Prince De Beauchene and of course, our own Across The Bay, who we'll be following live at Haydock on Saturday with some tweets from the course.
For some excellent coverage of all todays weights and reaction from trainers and owners and a view from Phil Smith as to why he was so kind to Tidal Bay, look at The Guardian Sport website.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2013/feb/12/grand-national-weights-lunch-2013
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