Grand National Saturday!

[viper_man]

Its Grand National time everybody, the biggest horse race of year is happening in little under an hour.

So is anybody having a flutter? Let us know how you get on.

[AndyRAC]

Gutted, had McElvey, just quite couldn't get there, great ride though by a future champion jockey, Tom (nephew of Aidan) O'Brien. Hedgehunter had too much weight, L'Ami didn't get the trip and Monkerhostin didn't fancy it. What a price though, 33-1, just look at the form book, wins in the Welsh National and Becher Chase, although he has had problems since those wins.

[Hazell B]

First and third riders gained a four day ban each for over-use of the whip and the horse in second has "broken down" (meaning he's probably strained a tendon badly) during the race.

Hardly an entertainment, in my opinion :(

[tony_yeboah]

First and third riders gained a four day ban each for over-use of the whip and the horse in second has "broken down" (meaning he's probably strained a tendon badly) during the race.

Hardly an entertainment, in my opinion :(

but lets not get into the horse racing arguement, i remember the HUGE arguement we all once had over whether it should a sport....lol those were the days

[Daniel]

First and third riders gained a four day ban each for over-use of the whip and the horse in second has "broken down" (meaning he's probably strained a tendon badly) during the race.

Hardly an entertainment, in my opinion :(
Yup. This was the first time I'd ever seen a Grand National and probably will be the last. Though at least I did enjoy the start/s.

I've always found horse racing a bit pointless but I see this at pointlessly dangerous for horse and rider. I mean there were people falling off left and right, horses falling and many horses continuing on riderless which is dangerous. But as Tony said we have had this argument before and I remember it well so there's no point revisiting it. But I do agree with Hazell that it's not really entertainment at all.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

It's only entertaining if you gamble on it. It isn't a great spectator sport but it's the only thing BBC can get for Grandstand.

Does the favourite ever win?

[stevie_gerrard]

i think hedgehunter won it in 2005 as favourite, but otherwise the last 9 grand national winners have not been the favourite.

i won money on numbersixvalverde last year, so stuck with him this year, a credible 6th, fought all the way to the end after being about 22nd after the first run.

[Hazell B]

Does the favourite ever win?

Yep, favourites won often in the past. Thing is, now there are cameras and it's a tad more serious than it used to be, the horses have to run on their merits and actually win rather than cheat :p :

Over the hundred and something years it's been won by some of racing's funniest cheats, often favourites. Two plain brown horses have run as one (each doing a lap), a rider in heavy fog simply stopped and waited for them all to come back around again and won on his nice fresh horse (but was caught and chucked out if I remember right), riders have thrown weight from the saddle to a man in the sidelines then grabbed it back before weighing in (very popular, that plan. Never proved, but six horses in one race were said to have done it!) and of course utterly dire horses have been replaced by very good ones. A sheepdog was once sent into the pack to chase some horses the wrong way in the days before radio covered the race!

It used to be the race for rubbish horses, so nobody minded the cheating. Now it's deadly serious and there'd be real trouble if there was a sniff of dodgy dealings.