Red Rum! Blue Vodka! Black Whisky!

Contrary to what many people think, I rarely go to the bookies. One of the only times I go is to make a small bet on the Grand National. This is the 3rd time I've done this and given the fact that I know as much information about horse racing than I do about brain surgery, I pretty much have to get really lucky to win one.

Upon my third time in betting for the grand national, I realised that I was burning money betting on horses with odds of 50-1 or more. The past two years I put a quid on a two 100-1 horses and they didn't pop up. Now if I put that statistically, assuming that the probability is actually correct (which it probably won't be), then for every 100 goes I place a bet on this, it should pop up once. Figuring that, I realised it wasn't going to happen this year so I'd put my money on safer bets.

(Those of you who do maths should already be aware that this is not actually true... Yes I'm not stupid... most of the time)

Next decision is to choose a horse based on a funny name. Last year I put a few bets on lots of funny names such as Big Fella Thanks, The Package, Made in Taipan, Hello Bud and this pretty unusual one called 'Don't Push It'. Personally, I think the odds are based on how ridiculous the names are. The more ridiculous, the higher odds. This would probably mean that more suckers would put bets on this horse thinking that they have a 'special' chance to win it. Of course it never happens (bar the odd fluke of a time) and bookies rake it in.

Of course, if I ever owned a horse, I would probably put the name down as 'Your Mum'. The joke would be hilarious the first time round. But then you'd eventually get sick of the joke because you'd hear it all the time. You then apply this logic to winning races and therefore 'Your Mum' would be perfect!

Using this approach I look for a name that looked pretty cool and not too ridiculous. Looking at the names this year, some I recognise from last year. Some that I've chosen before and regretted, others that I've chosen before and reaped in my winnings. And then some that just sound to crazy to be true. Even though I won last year with Don't Push It, I'm also aware that no horse has won it twice in a row since Red Rum so I decided not to 'push my luck' on it (see what i did there? :P)

So finally deciding, I put a few quid on Silver by Nature and What a Friend after being tipped by a punter there. His reasoning? He was grey haired and was a Man U fan (What a Friend is part owned by Sir Alex Ferguson). Using this same logic because I too was also grey and red, I went to bet on these as well. Good luck to me!

Taking a quick glance again, I looked at the weirder names on the list and I saw 'Ballabriggs'. What a name! A name so crazy like that would never win a race surely!

And there goes my story of how I didn't win anything on the Grand National.