It's Grand National weekend again, which means it's time for us to use some ever-so-slightly spurious behavioural science to help you choose a horse that's been underrated by the bookies.
It works like this: imagine there are two horses in the race. One's called The Winner, the other's called The Loser. The first horse is likely to attract more bets, even though the name won't make it a better horse. So if you're a savvy gambler, you'll back The Loser. Better odds, equal chance of winning.
The difference here is there are 40 horses in the race. So we've got to get a bit creative about how we rule them out. Let's get started.
The horse that won last year will definitely be overrated. So that's first to go:
Tiger Roll
Horses with names that suggest speed, strength, superpowers or victory will be overrated too. So they're gone too:
Anibale Fly
Go Conquer
Captain Redbeard
Bless the Wings
Warriors Tale
Magic of Light
Ultragold
Names that sound authoritative are out too:
Don Poli
Regal Encore
Noble Endeavor
Ramses de Teillee
Blue’s the UK’s favourite colour, so all the blue shirts have to go:
Ballyoptic
Rock the Kasbah
Jury Duty
Step Back
Singlefarmpayment
Walk In the Mill
Just a Par
Jockeys with stars on their shirts too (because only good things have stars):
Outlander
Minella Rocco
Dounikos
One for Arthur
A Toi Phil
Monbeg Notorious
Tea for Two
Blow by Blow
Vieux Lion Rouge
Valseur Lido
General Principle
Folsom Blue
You might have heard of these, but that doesn’t mean they’re likely to win:
Vintage Clouds
Pleasant Company
Place names and people's names will get more attention than they deserve too:
Mala Beach
Rathvinden
Valtor
Joe Farrell
This has to go because everyone's got it dangling from the windowsill in the kitchen:
Livelovelaugh
Which leaves these poor, overlooked runners:
Lake View Lad
Up for Review
And out of those, our money's on Up for Review. The ideal name for downplaying expectations. And at 25-1 as we write, a pretty good bet too.