14:00 Aintree – Second hat-trick looks certain for Big Buck’s
Published:Big Buck’s has won the Liverpool Hurdle for the past two years and a third odds-on victory is tough to oppose in the contest this year.
Currently, Big Buck’s odds are 8/15 to win the Liverpool Hurdle and his dominance of the staying hurdle division for the past three years shows no sign of letting up.
Big Buck’s has triumphed on all of his 11 starts over hurdles and arrives at Aintree having completed a hat-trick of successes in the Ladbrokes World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.
He now bids to emulate this streak in the Liverpool Hurdle and many of the statistics point in his direction for victory.
Six of last seven winners have all finished in the first four in the World Hurdle in the same year, while all seven winners have previously placed at the Grand National meeting.
This bodes well for Big Buck’s, alongside the fact that he should still be relatively fresh after a fairly light racing season.
With the Liverpool Hurdle now taking on Grade One status, meaning that all entrants run off level weights, Grands Crus is the only horse who can realistically be considered any kind of a threat to Big Buck’s.
Grands Crus was a decent second to Big Buck’s at Cheltenham and also has a few statistics working in his favour.
The big one is that no horse aged over seven has previously won the Liverpool Hurdle and Big Buck’s is now an eight-year-old.
Meanwhile, like Big Buck’s, Grands Crus features in the first three of the Aintree betting at 4/1 and all of the previous winners have been in the top three in the market.
Outsiders do have a habit of running into the places in the Liverpool Hurdle, so each-way backers may want to consider Karabak at 20/1.
Karabak has had an average season giving lumps of weight away to his rivals and seems to have been targeted for the race after missing the Cheltenham Festival.
A £20 stake on Karabak winning the Liverpool Hurdle would return £400. New customers can sign up here to take advantage of free bets totalling up to £60.
