The Becher Chase is obviously one of the most significant trials for the Grand National as it is run over 3m 2f at Aintree and, most importantly, over the National fences.

Previous Winners
Three Grand National winners have won this race: Earth Summit, Amberleigh House and Silver Birch, although none have won it in the season that they actually won the National.

Trends For Becher Chase
We can debate the effect this race will have on the Grand National after the race but what might actually win the Becher Chase? Are there any significant trends we can look at here?

Follow The Champion Trainer?
The most obvious thing from looking at the list of previous winners is that Paul Nicholls has won the race three times in the last four years and the only blip in that period was when Garvivonnian held off a determined late challenge from the Nicholls trained Le Duc by ¾ of a length. So it seems that the Champion Trainer has far more success in this race than in the main race over the National fences and with Mr Pointment and Gungadu entered this year he looks to have a strong hand yet again.

Age and Official Ratings Don’t Help Much
The usual areas of focus for narrowing contenders doesn’t offer much help here as there have been a wide variety of winners from different age and weight ranges. Official ratings have stretched from Ardent Scout at 117 to Earth Summit at 157 so that too is unlikely to help too much.

No doubt some will point to the fact that there has just been just one winner over the age of ten in the last ten years and so we might be pretty safe in leaving out the two runners aged twelve. However on closer inspection there have been 19 runners over ten years old in the last five years and four of those made the frame so disregarding the likes of Philson Run just on age grounds may not have that much creedance.

Jumping and a prominent style of running look the keys
I prefer the look of two stats relating to style of running and jumping ability.

I believe it is crucial to be up in the firing line for this race as the race tends to develop from the front and the majority of hold up horses find it difficult to get involved. Most of the last ten winners all have comments such as “chasing leaders” “led/disputed lead” “always prominent” “soon handy” and only Clan Royal and Amberleigh House have any mention of being “held up” and even Clan Royal was in front by the 9th fence. So, perhaps we should be on the lookout for horses who look more likely to race prominently and we should think twice about backing anything that appears to need holding up.

The second thing to consider is jumping ability. Perhaps this is stating the obvious over the National fences but none of the last ten winners of this race had fell or unseated more than twice at the point in their careers when they ran in this race (and most were 0 or 1 falls/unseats)

So applying the above principals we can (if we wish!) take out the following:

Held Up – Himalayan Trail
Too Many Falls/UR – Idle Talk
Too Many Falls/UR – Irish Raptor (I know he has a good record here but these are the stats)
Too Many Falls/UR – Oulart
Held Up – A New Story (not in last few, but was on last try in this race)
Held Up – Out The Black
Held Up – Philson Run (I know he has been placed round here but change of stables puts me off)
Too Many Falls/UR – Ivoire De Beaulieu (also the stable is right out of form – a worry for Noir Et Vert fans)

This cuts the field in half and with the previous very questionable form of Irish runners in the race (Only Garvivonnian being successful) you could take it further and leave the Irish raiders out as well but that looks a risky choice to me.

Early Feeling
As I mentioned earlier in the week I like the look of Southern Vic but he seems to be ridden with restraint in some of his races and that would be a major turn off if he was ridden like that in this race. Also, official ground of Good To Soft may not provide quite enough of a stamina test but now the runners are in and, I hope, we can narrow the field, its back to the form book!

Let us know your views and what your fancies are for this race and I will be adding more info tomorrow.