Lucky 15 Tips: Let’s hear it for Joey O on Thursday at Aintree

It's here - the iconic three-day Aintree Festival that includes of course the world's greatest steeplechase on Saturday - the Grand National. Thursday's seven-race card kicks in at 13:45 with four Grade 1 races on the spin, a sensational start to what's a quite brilliant gathering from start to breathless finish. We'll be with you every day with lots of content, chat, tips, and opinion. Pay a visit please to our Grand National hub - there might be something there to interest you ahead of the big one.

Right - without further ado, let's christen our Aintree week with the first Lucky 15 tips of the meeting. Have a fantastic time, and the very best of luck.

Horse Racing Odds

Today's Horse Races

13:45 - Croke Park @ 7/2

What a tasty opener - novice chasers go 2m 4f over the Mildmay fences for a first prize of around £67k.

The Cheltenham Festival Arkle winner Jango Baie, tipped up in these columns, looks to strike once again and will surely appreciate the extra 4f of real estate here compared to 23 days ago at Prestbury Park.

He needed every inch on that occasion and came with a sensational wet sail to collar his rivals close home. On this tight, flat track I'm going to oppose him though with Gordon Elliott's Croke Park, fresh from a 60-day break after a good 5l second to Ballyburn in a Leopardstown G1 in February.

The selection stays a bit further than this and took another G1, narrowly, on the same track on Boxing Day. He's got a few spots to find with the likely fav on official marks but has been aimed at this rather than Cheltenham and trainer Elliott has a good record here.

The seven-year-old Walk In The Park gelding has been a revelation since being sent chasing in November and is three-from-four over the larger obstacles. He renews rivalry with Impaire Et Passe and on that Ballyburn form there shouldn't be much between them once again; but I'm very hopeful that he'll maintain superiority over Willie Mullins' charge.

A wonderful start to the day, and to the Festival.

14:20 - Puturhandstogether @ 7/4

Emphatic winner of the Fred Winter at Chelters, and bids to follow-up in Liverpool for trainer Joseph O'Brien and owner JP McManus.

Puturhandstogether is a four-year-old gelding by Caravaggio, a very fine G1 sprinter for Joey's Dad Aidan. He's out of a Galileo mare, so there's a potent mix of speed and stamina that's really begun to pay dividends as this one's career over timber has developed.

Four runs in this sphere have yielded two successes, and crucially that huge effort in March was achieved with a 6l margin of victory in what was comfortably a career-high display - and in a 22-runner race thought beforehand to be ultra-competitive.

There's surely only going to be more improvement to come and I view this as a very strong fancy indeed.

15:30 - Lossiemouth @ 13/8

This fantastic 2m 4f G1 hurdle looks to be a match (and what a match) between the 2023 winner and the recent Mares' Hurdle superstar from the NH Festival.

We've got the impressive Martin Pipe scorer Wodhooh in there too for good measure, but it's Constitution Hill and Lossiemouth who dominate this for me. Nicky Henderson's 'Hill' is a course-and-distance scorer then from two years ago, and has had his issues in the interim including a lay-off of some 366 days.

He reappeared in Kempton's Christmas Hurdle on Boxing Day and ran really well to beat today's main rival Lossiemouth by 2.5l. A routine win followed at Cheltenham in January in a G2 (although he made a heart-stopping mistake at the last), and lined up as a firm 1/2 fav to regain his Champion Hurdle crown in Gloucestershire.

He was travelling ok - no more, no less - when taking another major liberty with a hurdle four out and came crashing down. Lossiemouth meanwhile was kept away from the white-heat of CH competition to win the Mares' in almost a canter (by 7.5l).

Now the pair get it on over a trip I believe will suit the six-year-old Willie Mullins-trained mare down to the ground, and exposing potentially any remaining ring-rustiness in the champion's armour.

Henderson's charge is one of the greats of the game for me, no question. For two years, between December 2021 and the same month in 2023 he was imperious, unbeatable, and simply awesome. Eight starts, eight wins.

His layoff and that fall has rather muddied the waters all right - and though I'm loath to desert him it might be safer to side with the daughter of Great Pretender, who lest we forget is 10 from 13 all told over timber herself.

Could be a race for the ages, and she gets that handy 7lb fairer sex allowance, don't forget.

17:15 - Seo Linn @ 3/1

More talented mares - this time in a G2 National Hunt flat race (bumper).

The rather brilliant Irish flat race jockey William James Lee - Billy to you and me - rides a very interesting one here for his main stable, that of Paddy Twomey.

Seo Linn took a Listed contest at Cheltenham in this sphere, with Lee on board, back in November. She's not been seen on the racecourse in the interim and one assumes this has been the plan ever since.

She's lightly raced, as with many of her rivals, and indeed her four outings (two victories) puts her among the more experienced in this fascinating heat. Twomey is running at 50% in terms of strike-rate over the last fortnight, but the sample size is miniscule (one winner from just two runners)!

The race attracting a top-flight pilot from the level is a great bonus, but Billy's no ordinary flat-race jock - he's ridden  over hurdles at this very meeting before in his younger days, and is a winner at Listed level over timber for the great Tommy Stack.

A simply terrific heat to bring the curtain down on day one.

This is an example of a Lucky 15. If you can improve upon my selections (of course you can), then go for it!

The odds can fluctuate between publishing our pieces and race-time. As a guide, a £0.50p win Lucky 15 on today's selections, at the prices, and assuming all four won, would return around £185 for your total £7.50 stake.

Fred, 'The Bonus King,' invented the 'Lucky' series of bets and their bonuses. My colleague Adam has set out all you need to know with this handy guide - take a look by clicking here.

Place a Lucky 15, Lucky 31 or Lucky 63 on Horse Racing or Greyhounds, and if all your selections run and only one of your selections win, get 3, 4 or 5 times the odds of your bet as cash.

• 5 x the Odds for One Winner on Lucky 63s
• 4 x the Odds for One Winner on Lucky 31s
• 3 x the Odds for One Winner on Lucky 15s

Lucky 15 tips from Betfred Insights.