Mr. D from Croydon wrote in last week to share his Aintree ecstasy with us... "I had a fairly large win on Saturday, simply by having the skill (ok then luck) to pick the first and second home in The National. The masterstroke I performed was to buy Silver Birch at 7 for £10 and Mckelvey at 15 for £7.50 on your Win Index market. Yes there were a couple of others I backed that are still running round Aintree, but as you can imagine I was chuffed that I had won £930 on Silver Birch and £337.50 on Mckelvey, both of which made up 100 and 60 respectively. The end of the race saw joyful whooping and dancing around the front room with my bemused 5 year old twin boys staring up at me. Although the £1,267.50 win may not last very long as a hastily written list of clothing requirements from Mrs. D appeared in front of me almost as soon as the horses had past the post... Oh well, still a great day"

Alan Curbishley still thinks West Ham do not need a miracle to get out of the bottom three but after Wednesday's hammering by Chelsea not many escapologists would want to have a go at saving their fate. One client wouldn't have minded seeing West Ham move closer to the drop and Chelsea to the title as he bought the Shirt Numbers in the game at 45 for £100 (the total number of the goalscorer's shirt numbers). The punter would have been rapturous as every goal in the Blues' 4-1 victory seemed to be scored by a player with 20+ on his back! Goals from Tevez (32), Kalou (21), Drogba (11) and SWP (24) made for a market final total of 112 and very nice profit for the client of £6,700.

The first of rugby's major honours went to England this weekend as a sun-blessed Twickenham played host to a thrilling Anglo-Welsh Cup Final between Leicester and Ospreys. Although it was not so thrilling for one client who sold the Ospreys' Multi-Points at 100 for £5 (their first half points x their second half points). The team from Neath and Swansea started poorly and were blitzed by the Tigers who held an impregnable 28-9 lead by half time. Some strong words must have been voiced in the Ospreys' dressing room as they really put the wind up Leicester during the next 40 minutes, almost causing one of the greatest final upsets for some time by going over four times on their way to scoring 26 second half points. This performance was not enough to deny Leicester the Cup but the Multi-Points make up of 234 was certainly enough for the client who was left £670 in arrears.

The National, as usual, threw up its regular dose of surprises last Saturday with beaten favourites, a dodgy start and glorious weather! One other surprise was the make up of the Multi-Mules market for the day. A client decided to sell at 765 for 50p believing that it would be a day for the classier horse (Multi-Mules = the racecard no. of the winner x the racecard no. of the second in each race added together). But unfortunately for the punter some of the unfancied nags came to the fore and, even with the abandoned bumper race, the market result was a staggering 1,707.5. This £471.25 loss certainly left the client with an unhappy memory of the world's biggest horse race.