Smart View: find out who comes out top in the Grand National according to our revolutionary new racecard

The newest addition to the Racing Post's award-winning app is the Smart View card. This turns the traditional racecard into a product fit for the 21st century. All the do-it-yourself elements, which have necessarily been condensed into an arcane shorthand over the years, are now contained in six colour-coded bars, following a traffic light-like system, to represent scores out of 100. These six scores are then combined into a weighted average, which is presented as the Smart View score.

The Smart View score has already pointed punters towards some big winners this spring. It showed a 76 per cent return on investment at the Cheltenham Festival and has already found winners this week at 14-1, 7-1, 100-30 and 3-1.

In last year's Grand National, the Smart View scores had two of the first four finishers in its own 1-2-3-4, with winner Corach Rambler in fifth. It was an admirable first attempt at a truly unique race.

Since then, the system has been refined and we are starting to use its results to help the engine train itself. In this article, I'll explain how Smart View's ratings are determined and how they can help you get a flavour of a horse's attributes from the quickest of glances. An incredible amount of computational blood, sweat and tears goes into what you can see for free, on all British and Irish races, by downloading the Racing Post app here.

The Smart View top-rated runners in the Grand National

1 NOBLE YEATS
2 Corach Rambler
3 Vanillier
4 Stattler

The big variations in score are on the course metric. It is therefore no surprise that two previous winners, Noble Yeats and Corach Rambler, fill the first two spots when it comes to overall score. Slightly better jumping, and the booking of champion jockey elect Harry Cobden, gives Noble Yeats the edge. The system asks us punters: should he really be several times the price of Corach Rambler?

Continuing the course theme, last year's runner-up Vanillier is third in. He leapt up the rankings when the ground changed from heavy to soft, while mudlark Galia Des Liteaux fell out of the first four. Under both going descriptions, Stattler was unshakeable from the fourth-placed spot. Smart View's engine reminds punters of his class and background. Should they speak more loudly than his quiet season so far?

• Download a PDF of the full Smart View racecard for the Grand National here
• 4.00 Aintree, Saturday: Randox Grand National full racecard and betting

Smart View: key scores

I Am Maximus

Course score: 66

The big question over I Am Maximus is whether he can take his field-leading form (he scores 100 on Ability) away from Fairyhouse. The engine is skeptical, mainly because it calculates that a record like the one I Am Maximus has amassed is unlikely to be fluke. It looks for his three career-best runs on Racing Post Ratings, all of which have come there. It also factors in the gap between Fairyhouse and the rest – 12lb in this case.

Personally, I fancy I Am Maximus and am inclined to think a horse that jumps sketchily and to the left at Fairyhouse should be able to take his form to a galloping, left-handed track. The engine reminds me that while I might be right, it would be statistically exceptional given I Am Maximus's career record.

Galia Des Liteaux

Trainer score: 100

As last year, the Smart View engine is highly positive on Dan Skelton in the Grand National. Along with Willie Mullins, he is the only trainer to get a maximum score.

While Skelton could not be said to match Mullins in his overall record, when it comes to races like this – British Class 1 handicap chases, as the system sees it – he can be put alongside anyone. Skelton has won the Greatwood Gold Cup and Grand Annual in recent weeks, while Mullins continues to find such races one of the only frontiers in British racing that he cannot quite bend to his will.

Galia Des Liteaux has herself run an excellent race in a top handicap this year, when second in the Classic Chase. She has done her bit in helping her trainer's score.

Kitty's Light

Ground score: 83

Smart View is a dynamic model, so when the going changes so do the ground scores. When the scores were first run out, on ground reported as heavy, Kitty's Light was only 24th of the 34 runners when it came to the overall score. When it changed to soft, he leapt up to 12th place and in those terms was the big winner from the drying conditions.

Look at Kitty's Light's record and this is no surprise. His best form has come in the spring, on ground described as good and good to soft. But it can also tell that his connections have actively avoided heavy ground. A horse with 35 starts, but only one on heavy, is statistically likely to have been kept away from the mud. This is surely true in Kitty's Light's case. Meanwhile, his record on soft is not exactly stellar, but four runs including two creditable efforts (within half a stone of his career peak Racing Post Rating at the time) are enough for the engine to make a clear distinction between Kitty's Light on soft and heavy ground. 

Chemical Energy

Jumping score: 74

The jumping attribute is the most intelligent of Smart View's metrics. It takes into account non-completions, and punishes falls and unseats on a time-decaying basis. So a fall last time hurts the score more than one from three starts ago.

But the really clever part is that it reads in-running comments. It picks up on certain phrases and comments and uses these to boost or downgrade a horse's score. Chemical Energy's recent starts include the following: 'mistake and lost ground 10th', 'hit 18th', 'mistake 9th', 'bad mistake 5 out', 'mistake 10th'. These all count against his jumping score, giving him one of the lowest totals in the field. The only lower scorer, Farouk D'Alene, has fallen on two of his last three chase runs.

The Goffer

Jockey score: 97

Sean Bowen has not always been given a Smart View score that reflects his excellent season. That is not the case today, as he is right up where he belongs with the biggest names.

The reason Bowen can struggle is because he has not amassed as many big-race wins as the likes of Paul Townend and Harry Cobden. He equalises this with a combination of three other factors that Smart View prizes: a strong course record (he has three wins over the National fences), a good record for the trainer (27 per cent strike-rate with Gordon Elliott this season) and an affinity with the horse (rode The Goffer for the second best run of his life at Sandown last April).

Stattler

Smart View score: 92

As a seasoned punter, I see Smart View's greatest use in challenging some of my lazy assumptions. Stattler is an excellent case in point.

This horse is a disappointment, right? He hasn't been sighted this season, but the system rightly highlights a profile that really ought to suit the National. He won the National Hunt Chase as a novice, on soft ground, and finished second in the Irish Gold Cup the following year. His runs this season have been over much shorter, or in banks races.

On last season's form, Stattler is among the best handicapped and the RPR handicapper has given him the benefit of the doubt, for reasons mentioned, leaving him on last term's rating. Smart View puts that all together and places Stattler among the highest scorers. On inspection, he needs a lot less excusing than you might think.

Chambard

Course score: 100

When a course is used as little as Aintree's Grand National course, the scores will naturally cover a large spread. At the top are the horses you would expect: former National winners Noble Yeats and Corach Rambler, Grand Sefton and Topham winner Mac Tottie. Chambard, who won the most recent Becher Chase, is also on 100.

The logic has done more than just pick out Chambard's Becher win, which would have given him a score well into the 90s on its own. It knows that his other best runs have been at 'galloping, left-handed' tracks, mainly Cheltenham. And if you are thinking Cheltenham and the National course are not that similar, I would not strongly disagree but would refer you to Gold Cup frame-hitters Noble Yeats and Corach Rambler.

Read these next:

2024 Grand National runners, tips and ratings: David Jennings' pinstickers' guide 

'He's exactly where we want him to be' - top trainers on their Grand National hopes   

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