Carol Vorderman shares her Grand National winning formula

We’ve teamed up with former Countdown star and all-round maths whizz Carol Vorderman to help you pick a horse to bet on in the nation’s favourite race – the Grand National. 

With 40 horses lining up at Aintree, it can be difficult to choose which runners to back.

So, this year, national sweetheart Carol has devised a winning formula to help novice punters make their selections

The former Queen of Countdown said: “I’ve used all sorts of unscientific methods to choose a horse to back in the Grand National.

“And so this year I’ve devised a formula for Ladbrokes that I hope will help me win. My formula is simple and a bit of fun,” she added.

But how exactly does it work?

Watch, learn and apply…

Carol explained: “You take the first letter of your surname and assign it a number from 1 to 26″, So, ‘A’ equals 1, ‘B’ equals 2, and so on until ‘Y’ equals 25 and ‘Z’ equals 26. For me, ‘V’ for Vorderman is number 22 in the alphabet, so that’s my first number.

“You then take a number from 0 to 14. Lots of people claim the number seven as their lucky number, so I’m choosing that this year. Add those two numbers together, and you’ll have a number between one and 40. I’ve got 22 + 7 = 29, and that’s the horse on the race card I’ll be backing.”

And with that pick being Scottish National winner Vicente it appears that our tipping queen could be in clover.

All Carol has to do now is go out and enjoy the festivities.

“I love the Grand National,” says Carol, “but I haven’t been to Aintree before. This year, I’ll be going with some of my friends from I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! Sam Quek is an Aintree ambassador, and Ola Jordan and I are going as her guests. I hope I beat them at the bookies!”

Nicola McGeady from Ladbrokes says: “The Grand National is the biggest betting event on the calendar so we wanted to make choosing a winner as easy as possible – and who better than one of the nation’s most popular maths whizzes and TV personalities to show us how. We think Carol’s system does just that.”

And it seems that thanks to Carol we’re on to a winner with the formula: “If I’d used this formula last year, I’d have won at 33/1, with Rule The World,” finished Carol. “I hope it works this year! Good luck, everyone.”

The formula:

Step 1: Take the first letter of your surname, and its place in the alphabet

a = 1   b = 2   c = 3   d = 4   e = 5 

f = 6   g = 7   h = 8   i = 9   j = 10

k = 11   l = 12   m = 13   n = 14

o = 15   p = 16   q = 17   r = 18

s = 19   t = 20   u = 21   v = 22

w = 23   x = 24   y = 25   z = 26

Step 2: Add your favourite number between 0 and 14

Result: The resulting number between 1 and 40 is the number of the horse you should back

Example: Carol Vorderman’s number is 7

22 + 7 = Horse number 29

Would you like to know more about how to bet on this event? Check out here our practical guide with Grand national betting tips

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