Favourites for the 2010 Grand National will be ten a penny between now and April 10th when the race is run so expect a new hot tip every week until then, especially with the Hennessy Gold Cup coming up next week! But today it’s the turn of Vic Venturi, who until 1.45pm yesterday afternoon, was being completely overlooked as a potential contender until he dashed passed the winning post in the Aintree Beechers Chase.

Trained by Dessie Hughes, who won the same race last year with Black Apalachi, and ridden by Paddy Flood, Vic Venturi had so little money on him that while all of the other odds were getting shorter before the race, his were actually drifting, so much so that he began it at 7/1 with the bookies. However, it was a completely different story after the race with many of the bookmakers immediately updating their Grand National odds page with much shorter odds on him to win in April 2010.

To his credit, Vic Venturi ran an incredible race and with as little as two fences to go really wasn’t in it all, in fact, Hello Bud was still taking the lead when Paddy Flood brought him up on the inside to run alongside Keenan’s Future and Hello Bud at a stage where it could have gone to any of the three of them. But Hello Bud was beginning to run out of gas, possibly due to a heavy race a week ago, and had started to fade at The Elbow and Keenan’s Future couldn’t mount a final assault so Flood and Vic Venturi began to assert, drawing well clear at the line.

The Irish nine year old looks a shoe in to run in the 2010 Grand National now and could even be direct competition for fellow stable mate Black Apalachi who also ran last year. Ante post odds on him are now as follows:

Paddy Power at 16/1
Ladbrokes at 25/1
Betfair at 36/1