The Grand National

I don't normally bet on horses but it's The Grand National, so why not!

The Grand National is the only horse race I will ever bet on as it only happens once a year and if I'm completely honest there's not a lot I know about horse racing but with the advice of others and general beginner's luck I hope to win some money.

This week I have focussed my attentions on the biggest horse race of the year instead of football, just because everyone else will and there are good odds on offer.

The only tip I have heard this year is for the current favourite The Midnight Club. When a few people, who are more knowledgable in the world of horse racing tell me to go for the favourite who am I to disagree with them?

You can never usually go far wrong with favourites but when the odds are 9/1, with Coral, it is a definate bet if you ask me. If you compare this to a favourite team in the Premier League the odds are usually around 2/5 or along those lines but to go against odds of 9/1 is just silly if you ask me.

It is for those reasons I have put £5 on The Midnight Club to win the whole race which returns £50 if it comes in, lets hope it does so it takes my betting total to over £100.

I went into Coral with just £8 in my wallet, I had wanted to put £10 on the race but I didn't want to go back to the cash point for the sake of £2 so I would have to make do with just £8 on the race.

After spending £5 on the favourite I was left with just £3 so I decided to look through the list and pick three names that stood out to me. The first name I saw that I recognised was Comply or Die offered at odds of 40/1. The horse won this race just three years ago and with odds of 40/1 I thought it was worth a punt, they've delivered the goods before so why not again?

The second name that stood out to me was State of Play, last year's third place finisher. As I have already mentioned I am not a huge horse racing fan so I am not completely up to date with all the ins and outs of the sport but these are two names I have heard of and just looking at previous results suggests that these two horses have exactly what it takes to win The Grand National.

State Of Play has been given odds of 25/1 to win the race with Coral, which is incredibly large odds considering they finished third last year, which is why I have opted to back this horse with £1 of my betting funds.

The final horse I have opted to back is West End Rocker and I have adopted a bit of a beginner's attitude towards picking this horse. I had £1 in my wallet left and wanted to put it on a horse to improve my chances of winning.

There wasn't any other horses that stuck out to me so I got my girlfriend to choose it, so if this horse now comes in to win I will be proud of her but annoyed she managed to choose the winner and I didn't.

I managed to get West End Rocker at odds of 25/1 with Coral but many people have realised that this is a horse who has won it's last two races and placed in six of it's last ten outings, which to me suggests that this horse is a great horse to put an each way bet on.

The popularity of this horse is rising and the odds of the Irish horse winning have been cut down to 20/1, so if you are going to put some money on this horse do it quickly.

Hopefully one of these horses will romp to a win and net me a nice tidy profit of at least £18.

Here's to a change of familiarity.