Grand National 2006 - Trading Ideas

Like my Cheltenham case study, this analysis should help to give you some trading ideas for your future trading. I didn't trade these horses myself in this instance, but made notes of potential trades, and illustrated some price anomalies, and how you could have profited from them.

As it turned out the actual Grand National prices were very efficient. By that I mean they hardly deviated at all from the bookmakers prices, so good trading opportunities were few and far between. I'll discuss that later, but I'll start with the rest of the day's races at Aintree. Remember I only trade the morning session, and as a rule I stop trading at 1.00 before the prices start jumping about.

The first race at 1.45 offered many trading opportunites. Firstly Wellbeing offered a good trading opportunity. At a general price of between 6 and 6.5, I thought it was simply too short on Betfair at 6 briefly, and more generally 6.2. It's guide price was 7 with Sporting Life so I figured this would be a relatively low risk trade. As it turned out this horse's price did subsequently drift out to around 7. I've just noticed as I write this that it's now trading at 8.2 on Betfair, but this is mainly due to a small drift in the bookmakers prices, and not a price anomaly on Betfair.

The next horse I want to mention is Noble Quest. To be honest I thought this horse would have drifted in more than it did do. It was priced up at between 6.5 and 8 on the whole, and had a guide price of 6 in the Sporting Life race card, but was trading at a very generous 11 on Betfair. Therefore it would have been worth backing at this price in anticipation of it drifting inwards. However surprisingly it only subsequently came in to 10.5, but it did stay within a tight trading range of 10.5-11 for most of the morning, so there were profits to be made simply by backing at 11 and laying at 10.5.

It's rare to find three different trading opportunities in one race, but there was one other horse who offered a solid low-risk trade, Beautiful Vision. Trading at between 11 and 13, with a guide price of 15, you would expect Betfair's prices to be slightly higher than this. However, at one point this horse was available to lay at 11 for small amounts, but more generally 11.5 and 12 for decent sized amounts. Therefore this was a straightforward case of lay low and back slightly higher, and as it turned out you could have layed at 11.5 or 12 and backed it back at 14, which it drifted out to soon afterwards.

Onto the next race at 2.15 and there were a couple of horses worth trading, although they weren't massive opportunies, just a quick in-and-out, as they say. Firstly Voy Por Ustedes traded at between 1.91 and 2.1 with the bookies. At 2.06 with Betfair, I thought it was slightly too short, and could drift out to 2.1, and as it turned out it did stay in the trading range 2.06 - 2.1 for quite a while.

The second horse was Hoo La Baloo. The bookies were quoting prices of between 7.5 and 9, and it had a guide price of 5, so at 11.5 this was a good opportunity to back and hopefully lay back later at a lower price. True to form it later drifted in nicely and could have easily been layed back at 10 and 10.5.

In the 2.50 Sky's The Limit provided an excellent opportunity. With a guide price of 3.75 and a general price with the bookies of between 3.5 and 3.75, you would expect a price on Betfair between 3.75 and 4. However at one point it plunged into 3.45 so this was pretty much a no-brainer. Even if a few of the bookies had cut their prices from 3.75 to 3.5 you would still expect it to trade slightly higher than 3.45. Therefore a lay at 3.45 would have been a rock-solid trading position, and would indeed have been profitable as it subsequently drifted back out to around 3.75, a more realistic price.

Another excellent trading opportunity presented itself in the 3.25 in the shape of Liberman. Trading prices ranged from 8 to 11 with the bookies, and with a guide price of 13, it traded at a massive 17.5 at one point on Betfair. Again this was a superb trading opportunity, and you've guessed it it subsequently dropped in price quite quickly to around 13.5/14, which is about where you would expect it to be trading.

In the two races after the Grand National, there were two trading opportunities. Firstly Well Tutored in the 5.00 was a very good low-risk lay at 6.6, considering it was trading at between 6.5 and 7.5 with the bookies. This horse drifted out to around 7 soon afterwards. Secondly in the last Alfie Flits, similar to Sky's The Limit was trading at between 3.5 and 3.75 with the bookies but was available to lay on Betfair at 3.55 at one point. With a guide price of 5 this looked like a potentially profitable position, and as I write this I see it's now trading at 4 despite the bookies odds remaining fairly constant.

So now on to the Grand National, and as I mentioned earlier, price anomalies and therefore potential trading positions were very scarce. One borderline case was Ross Comm who was a reasonable lay at 17.5 with odds ranging from 15-17 with the bookies. At the time of writing it's now trading at 19 so this would have been a profitable trade.

There were two horses that I thought were decent trading opportunities not because of any discrepancies between the bookies' odds and Betfair's odds, but because from many years of watching the Grand National it's very rare that you get short-priced favourites below about 6-1, ie 7 in decimal odds. So for this reason only I thought that the two favourites, Clan Royal and Hedgehunter, were simply too short and therefore worth laying at 6.8 and 7.2 respectively.

As it turned out Clan Royal did indeed drift out, but only slightly, now being just 7 to back, which still seems too short. Hedgehunter drifted slightly more and is now available to back at 7.8 although it did touch 8.2 at one point. 

Hopefully you will have picked up a few trading ideas from this case study. If you are not already a member, you can sign up to Betfair (providing you're not based in the US) by clicking here.

Good luck.