Signs you're becoming obsessed with horse racing: 1, you watch Racing UK without actually having placed money on a horse; 2, you use the expression 'get it beat' when you mean 'beaten'; 3, you can actually identify owners' colours other than the gold and yellow of JP McManus or Godolphin Blue; 4, (and this is the most heinous crime of all) you start inputting 'data' into a spreadsheet.

Yes, it finally happened this week. After years of scribbling down names of horses and their respective profiles for certain races on whichever scrap came to hand – be it a payslip or the corner of a curtain – the Tenner Bet succumbed and starting entering details of horses into the computer.

The decision was not taken lightly but, inspired by a couple of winners/places from fairly lengthy research, I was becoming increasingly preoccupied with writing 'stuff' down that went straight into the bin. This week, I've spent quite some time analysing the Scottish Grand National field, using statistics readily available on the internet from just the most cursory of searches.

The clear caveat with any use of stats is that they only tell one side of the story. There isn't much that beats the watching eye for telling you whether your pick would be better off on the sands of Ayr beach giving youngsters a quick trot up and down the seafront. Happily, though, today's National gives us the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with a few of the horses that graced our screens a fortnight ago in the Aintree equivalent.

And this is where the spreadsheet comes in. The tricky part is the typing, what with me being part-man, part-simian, but after that it's as shooty-in as a Leigh Griffiths' 25-yarder. Indeed, the ability to apply filters to each race, and the horses taking part, means deconstructing the field and, therefore, identifying those horses with a better-than-average chance of winning becomes markedly simpler.

For instance, the sample I've used marks Aintree Grand National runners down for the Scottish race because it is widely believed that a marathon at the start of the month is not the ideal preparation for one two weeks later. Red Rum is not the only horse to have won the race twice (Little Polveir took the Scottish National in 1987 before winning in Liverpool in 1989, while Earth Summit won in Ayr in 1994 and Aintree in 1998) but it is the only horse to do it in the same season, achieving the double in 1974.

It's a pretty compelling stat when there are a couple of horses on similar scores. I've used one point per positive trend as a formula for narrowing the field and took everything from weight, age and official rating to time off the track, form and big-race performances. In total, I had 10 ratings and the cut-off point lay at 8. If we draw a line up from that figure, we are left with 12 on a score of 8 out of 10 and seven with 9 out of 10. Only four horses score the maximum. Of those on 8, Auroras Encore ran in the Grand National. I think the evidence is too strong to consider backing it to win, especially when one considers the weight-to-finishers ratio in last year's renewal.

I've used a cut-off of 11 stone, given that nothing carrying that figure managed to complete the course and the ground is scheduled to be on the soft side. The stat is also a negative for Poungach, Always Right, Rival D'Estruval and Knockara Beau. If we employ a further zero-tolerance cut, that of horses aged eight and under or 11 and over – given that we are 10 from 10 in the last decade and historically it is a very strong stat – then we can also remove Problema Tic, Nuts N Bolts and Big Occasion from the equation. When the final numbers are crunched we are left with a list of four, which comprises Rose Of The Moon, Mister Marker, Rigadin De Beauchene and Bradley.

I'm pretty confident the winner is in this bunch, but we need a name, or two, or even three. With rain having fallen over recent days, it's probably best to took for something that likes a bit of give in the turf.

Rigadin De Beauchene (20/1 general), who fell last time out at Sandown, can take a bit of dig in the ground and, if we can forgive that mishap in his last outing, he must have a massive chance. Mister Marker (25/1) and Rose Of The Moon (28/1) have winning form on soft to heavy, while one that makes it in at the bottom of the weights is Monsieur Cadou (14/1), who shows plenty of room for improvement and ticks all of the boxes. Remember to shop around for 1-5 the place on each.