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The Grand National is the one horse race that both ardent fans of the sports of kings and those largely indifferent to it know and love. Who hasn’t taken part in an office sweepstake or scanned through the names of Grand National contenders in the hope that a (sometimes absurd) name will stand out to them and that generous odds will convenientlysit alongside it?

Of course with large fields, and a taxing course with fences known to challenge even the most able, picking the national winner can often feel a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. There are other betting angles to explore too though, such as a place bet, if you feel that a big odds selection may well have what it takes to put up a good performance but might not quite be winner material. That’s the beauty of betting really, you can pool all of your knowledge into a bet that broadly matches what you hope will occur. That’s always been how people make their money in the gambling world, but nowadays there are even more tools to hand that can help you hone your skills further.

I’m of course taking about AI racing tips. Gone are the days of having to manually collate racing info in a task that isn’t far off reading tealeaves. Now you can instead go directly to large sources of useful data and interrogate it directly. With that being the case with AI, it becomes the questions you ask that are most important, and the information you’re then able to extract as result. Even without this ‘questioning’ angle, AI can still analyse data to the point it draws conclusions about the likelihood of an outcome. Think about that in real terms. AI can essentially take a view of the confidence and value of a betting selection, vs the price currently on offer. In the Grand National there are often selections that are 100-1, 200-1, sometimes more and so if you can extract insights that show those odds to be much bigger than they should be, you have a golden opportunity in your hands.

AI in the context of sport and sports betting isn’t the case of completely tearing up the rulebook and starting again, it’s more building on your existing knowledge and strategies and putting yourself in a position of finding value and winning big as result. If you’re already ruled out certain horses, say as out of the running in the national, AI tools can help you narrow the field further and centre in on a strategy that is more likely to reap rewards.

The Melling Chase is a Grade 1 steeplechase run over 2 miles and 4 furlongs on the Mildmay Course at Aintree in early April. Open to horses aged five years and upwards, the race is currently sponsored by leading American stockbroker Marsh & McLennan and, hence, known as the Marsh Chase for sponsorship purposes. The officially registered title, though, comes from the nearby village of Melling in Sefton, Merseyside. The Melling Chase is currently scheduled as the fourth race on the second day of the three-day Grand National Festival, a.k.a. Ladies’ Day.

The Melling Chase was inaugurated, as a Grade 1 contest, in 1991 and has maintained that status throughout its lifetime. Indeed, the field often features horses that contested the Queen Mother Champion Chase or the Ryanair Chase at the Cheltenham Festival and the roll of honour includes the likes of Viking Flagship, Moscow Flyer, Master Minded, Sprinter Sacre and Politologue. Paul Nicholls, trainer of Master Minded and Politologue, and Nicky Henderson, trainer of Sprinter Sacre, have both saddled three winners apiece and are, jointly, the leading handlers in the history of the Melling Chase.

A total of half a dozen horses have won the Melling Chase twice, but the most recent to them, Fakir D’oudairies, who won back-to-back renewals in 2021 and 2022, may be in a position to attempt an unprecedented hat-trick in 2023. Joseph O’Brien’s Kapgarde gelding will still only be an 8-year-old by the time 3.25pm on Friday, April 8 rolls around, so it will be interesting to see how his season develops. Of course, top-class two-mile steeplechasers, such as Energumene, Shiskin and Edwardstone, are always possibilities while, from the ‘intermediate’ division, leading Ryanair Chase fancies Allaho and Galopin Des Champs are other possibilities.

In a remarkable career in the saddle, Sir Anthony McCoy rode over 4,000 winners but, as far as the wider public is concerned, achieved his crowning glory when winning the 2010 Grand National on Don’t Push It.

In fifteen previous attempts, McCoy had finished third in the celebrated steeplechase three times – on Blowing Wind twice, in 2001 and 2002, and Clan Royal in 2006 – but never won. Nevertheless, despite being pulled up on his previous start in the Pertemps Network Final at the Cheltenham Festival, where he reportedly ‘appeared to lose interest’, Don’t Push It was the subject of a public gamble, from 20/1 to 10/1 joint-favourite, on Grand National Day.

The market support proved well founded. The 10-year-old was well placed, just behind the leaders, heading out into the country for the second time and, despite making a mistake at the fence after Valentine;s Brook, was one of a group of four horses that drew clear with two fences left to jump. He tackled the leader, Black Apalachi, at the final fence and, although idling on the infamously long run-in, drew away in the closing stages to win by 5 lengths. McCoy later confessed, ‘It means everything to me to win the Grand National.’

Collectively, McCoy, winning trainer Jonjo O’Neill and winning owner John ‘J.P.’ McManus had made 62 attempts to win the Grand National. Don’t Push It was retired in January, 2012, at which point O’Neill reflected, ‘I think we’ll always remember the magical day he won the Grand National…as we had all been trying to win the race for so many years.’