Across The Bay adheres to six big Grand National trends

Ballabriggs may be the leading hope from the Donald McCain yard for 2013 Grand National victory, but stablemate Across The Bay may be of the most under-considered entrants at 33/1.

Across The Bay ran well for the most part in the Welsh Grand National earlier this season before tailing off late on.

He runs off a 3lb lower mark at Aintree and a wind operation seemed to have a positive impact on his last start, when winning over hurdles at Haydock.

However, it is the fact that he meets six key Grand National trends that puts the biggest tick in his column as a positive each-way bet for Aintree.

With 30 fences included over 4m3f, it is fairly obvious that a horse with an abundance of stamina and that is a safe jumper is a good starting point for finding a possible winner.

Some 15 of the last 16 winners had fallen no more than twice in their career, while eight of the last nine already had a victory on their resume over a distance of 3m1f or further.

Given that 40 horses will also line up at Aintree, experience in a larger field is a help with the extra trouble that is liable to be encountered in running. Nine of the winners in the last decade had previously triumphed in a race that included at least 14 runners.

Amazingly, almost 80 per cent of the entries this year do not meet these three pieces of criteria, including 8/1 joint favourites On His Own and Prince De Beauchene.

Digging deeper, horses aged between nine and 11 have been dominant in recent years, 15 of the last 16 winners have been officially rated at least 138 and every winner since 1994 had previously run in at least 10 chase races to boost their experience.

Across The Bay ticks all of these boxes and as if punters needed any other reason to add him to their each-way portfolio, he has never finished out of the first three at Aintree on his three visits to the course.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.