The 2023 Aintree Festival is upon us and starts this coming Thursday, 13th April. With it, the RAWK Aintree tipping competition returns for it's 10th edition.
Can top tipster Aedge659, and last months 2023 Cheltenham Tipster champ go on to become the first RAWK Tipster to hold both jumps trophies simultaneously and at the same time become the first player to win the Aintree trophy for the second time?
Or perhaps Salger will repeat his 2022 performance, and thus become the first player to successfully defend their Aintree Tipster title!
***The Rules and scoring run very much in conjunction with the Cheltenham tipping contest of which many of you are now familiar.***
Players, old and new are most welcome.
Pick one horse per race for each of the 3 festival days. Points are accumulated as follows
Winner - 15 points
Second - 10 points
Third - 7 points
Fourth - 4 points
Points are only paid for the following places which the bookies are obliged to pay out on: Any additional places some bookies pay out on are enhanced place terms and DO NOT count in this competition.
Handicaps of more than 16 runners - first four places.
Handicaps of 12-15 runners - first three places.
All other races of more than 8 runners - first three places.
All races of 5-7 runners - first two places.
Bonus points are available as follows. Starting from this years competition, there are now extra bonus points for winners and placed horses at 100/1 and over.
Winner 100/1 and over = 30 Bonus Points
Winner 33/1 and over = 20 bonus points
Winner 16/1 and over = 15 bonus points
Winner 8/1 and over = 5 bonus points
Placed horses 100/1 and over - 15 Bonus Points
Placed horses 33/1 and over - 10 Bonus points
Placed horses between 16/1 and 33/1 - 5 Bonus points
On each days racing you must also pick ONE NAP horse. If your NAP selection wins, then you receive double points. In previous years you simply received a 10 point bonus for picking a NAP winner. I feel that a double point bonus may encourage people to try and NAP a more risky selection at longer odds and therefore gain more points. It also gives people further down the leader board a chance to move up with a bit more of a risk/reward tactic.
So to clarify, if you picked a 10/1 winner you will get 20 points as standard (15 + 5). If you made this your NAP of the day you would receive double and get 40 points. Napping a 33/1 winner would get you 70 Points (15 + 20 x 2). Napping an odds on favourite would gather no odds bonus and just get you the standard 15 points for a winner then doubled. (15 x 2 = 30). And so on.
If you tipped a 33/1 horse that finishes 2nd you will get 20 points (10+10)
Grand National Bonus
There is also a bonus for picking the big race winner on Saturday. The 'Grand National' Bonus Points - An additional bonus of 10 points is added to your base score for anyone selecting the big race winner. So napping the grand national winner could result in a monster haul of points.
Entries to be posted in this thread before the first race each day. You can also post your selections for each day the night before or even post all 3 days selections before Thursday if you so wish.
I will update the leader board each evening on this post.
***In the event of the leaders being tied for the lead at the conclusion of the final days racing. The overall winner will be determined by the number of winners picked, if still tied then it will go to 2nd places, then 3rd places and so on until we have a winner. If the players cannot be split we will have a playoff on the earliest UK meeting on the Monday immediatley following the festival***Any Non-Runners in your selections will be replaced by the SP Favourite.
If you don't think you've got the time to make any selections on one of the days just post something along the lines of "Fav every race". In the event of JT Favourites your selection will be deemed as the favourite that is first alphabetically.
**Anyone with edits on their original posts AFTER the start of the FIRST race each day, will void all their selections for that day!!!**
***Any player who neglects to post an entry of some kind for any TWO of the three festival days will be removed completely from the competition. NO EXCEPTIONS***.
Please feel free to edit your selections right up to the time of the first race or post your whole weeks selections in one go. I will also accept late entries on each day for the remaining races that day.
Any questions about the point scoring or selections please feel free to ask in this thread or drop me a PM. We will not be having separate threads for chat and selections this year we can just keep it all contained in this thread.
No real prizes I'm afraid - just the glory of being crowned 'RAWK Aintree Festival Champion Tipster 2023' while also getting your name inscribed on this lovely virtual trophy!
