Ladbrokes makes Grand National formula with Carol Vorderman

Ladbrokes has joined forces with Carol Vorderman to help punters pick out a winner from the 40 horses lining up for this year’s Grand National.

The Maths whizz and former Countdown co-host has worked with Ladbrokes – Rank 4/5 on Bookmaker Ratings – on a winning formula to help novice punters pick the first past the post from the runners and riders at Aintree.

Vorderman said: “I use all sorts of unscientific methods to choose a horse to back at the Grand National. And 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.

“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.”

As the excitement for Saturday’s race builds, research commissioned by Ladbrokes shows that The Grand National is still the nation’s favourite, with one in three naming it as their favourite horseracing event. Red Rum is the most recognisable horse, with 27% naming the three-time Grand National winner as their favourite, while Sir Tony McCoy tops the poll of favourite jockeys with 12% of the vote.

Vorderman continued: “I love the Grand National, 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 – if I’d used this formula last year, I’d have won at 33/1, with Rule The World!”

Nicola McGeady, Head of Racing PR at Ladbrokes, added: “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.”