As a spectacle there is no other annual event in the world that literally provides the same amount of thrills and spills as the National does.
However, by the time the big race came around, my mood was such that I couldn't even be bothered to go out and have a bet. My other half said we should pick a couple of horses each just for fun. She chose Clan Royal and Bear On Board who finished second and sixth respectively whilst I chose Joss Naylor - and the winner, Amberleigh House.
There was a part of me that was delighted that Amberleigh House had won the race because his trainer, Ginger McCain (who also trained Red Rum of course), had said for many years that this horse would win the big one and having seen the horse go so close in previous years, it was great to see him finally do it.
However, having witnessed that after failing to put a bet on, not to mention what happened at Villa Park, there was another part of me that wondered why I ever got out of bed at all on Saturday morning.
In the build up to Saturday's game I talked about frustration, didn't I? I talked about how nauseating, irritating and infuriating life can be when you feel that way. Well, that's how I felt on Saturday night and, God knows, it's a hard emotion to shake off even now.
For me it's not so much the fact that we have been beaten but (as was the case on Saturday) it's often the WAY we have been beaten that really hurts more than anything. It was what I would call a "nearly" day for us because over the piece I don't think that we played badly but at the same time we didn't play well enough either.
It was one of those matches where we were not helped at all by some pathetic refereeing (how Keane and Scholes got away with just a booking between them I will never know) but at the same time we didn't help ourselves. For the second time in a week against this lot we could and should have sewn the game up pretty much before they had been given time to blink but a mixture of poor finishing and bad luck meant that we failed to take the chances we made.
Of course, the fact that we missed chances, the fact that we hit the woodwork twice or indeed the fact that the opposition were guilty (amongst other things) of no less than THREE blatant handling offences in their own penalty area hardly mattered a jot in the press and the media. I haven't seen one paper that made reference to any of those offences but then I don't any Arsenal fan would be surprised to hear that.
At the end of the day, Saturday's result was the kind of result that the press and the media had all been waiting for and having spent weeks building us up, their true colours have since come to the fore as they fall over themselves to take an editorial sledgehammer to us in order to knock us down.
All bets are now off and every conceivable angle will be used to undermine Arsenal Football Club from now on. They have already been quick to gleefully point to the fact that we now have to embark on a schedule of three games in just FIVE days with injuries piling up and they will be rubbing their hands together in anticipation at seeing us fall apart like we did to a large extent last year.
And by the time we play Chelsea on Tuesday you can bet that a dream scenario will have already been mapped out.
As we know, Chelsea went into this tie with everyone's sympathy vote anyway but in the light of what happened to us in comparison to what happened to them this weekend, you can bet that everything will be done by those inside AND outside of Stamford Bridge to make sure that the feel good factor at Chelsea is at an optimum high come Tuesday night.
Most people will feel that this is a perfect time for Chelsea to be playing us and an excellent opportunity for Chelsea to not only to knock us out of Europe but to sow an even bigger seed of doubt in our minds with games against Liverpool and Newcastle looming large in the league.
Which leads me nicely back round to us. It almost seems crazy how one defeat has totally changed how the Arsenal's fortunes are perceived but, as I have always said, we are a club that has never been given a decent level of respect in this country and we are damned whatever we do.
The world, its mother and indeed some of the Chelsea players seem to think that they have got us where they want us right now. They believe that we are suddenly down and out and there for the taking.
Whether it is fair or unfair, whether we Gooners like it or not, the fact is that the Arsenal are being backed into a corner and are, therefore, faced a straight choice. Either we feel sorry for ourselves, lie down and give everyone the huge satisfaction of being proved right or we go out, fight for our own self esteem and get back to doing what we have done for so much of this season - confounding everyone's original expectations and shoving up two fingers to our many detractors. I know which one I prefer and if our players are half the players I think they are, they will feel the same.