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For flat fans the wait for the new turf season is almost over, with the Lincoln fixture taking place this weekend, writes Dave Renham. Indeed, for fans of Irish flat racing, it has already begun! For me it is the most exciting part of the year as all the winter number crunching and research I have done gets ‘tested’.
In this article I will be looking at results in April (UK racing only) going back ten seasons, focusing on turf racing only and hence excluding the all-weather. Due to Covid there was no racing in April 2020 so I have gone back to 2012 to get the tenth year of data. Profits / losses have been calculated to Industry SP, and also quoted to Betfair Starting Price when appropriate.
I will be concentrating on general factors including market data, trainers and last time out (LTO) performance. I will drill deeper when applicable, for example to make comparisons with handicap and non-handicap results. So let’s get cracking:
Market Factors in April Flat Racing
So how do fancied flat horses fare in April on the turf? Here is the breakdown of the performance of top three in the betting:
In terms of returns to SP, second favourites have lost the least amount of money (just). To BSP second favourites have again done best of the three, losing just 2.4p in the £. Favourites would have lost you 7p in £, and third favourites a similar amount (7.1p).
Moving onto strike rates, second and third favourites have won as often as they should when comparing the data with other months of the year. Taking the ten years as a whole, favourites have under-performed in April when compared with other months. The overall strike rate for turf flat favourites (all months over 10 years) is 31.7%, so the 29.39% figure for April is just over 2 percentage points lower. I suppose this is to be expected – we have a good proportion of favourites making their seasonal debut after several months off and so fitness and form lines are likely to be a little ‘blurred’. Favourites therefore have not been particularly good value at this time as year, when looking at the whole data set. However, I do want to look at favourites in more detail and, as will be seen, recent favourite performance has seemingly ‘improved’.
Favourites in April
First things first, let me look at the yearly win and each way strike rates. Each way strike rates combine and win and placed horses:
The last five years has out-performed the previous five for both winning favourites and each way market leaders. If I group this 5-year data in a table it may be easier to see the recent trend more clearly:
As the table shows there has been an uptick in strike rate, returns, A/E indices and Impact Values over the past five seasons. The win & placed (EW) strike rates reflect this also with the last five years showing 4.5% more favourites filling an each way position. So a better recent record for favourites, but despite this improvement their figures are still a little shy of favourites at other times of the year in terms of strike rate and returns.
April Favourites by race type
Time to compare handicap market leaders versus non-handicap ones:
As one might expect, non-handicap favourites have by far the higher strike rate. However, returns are virtually identical for both groups in terms of A/E.
One positive stat worth sharing is that if we focus solely on 3yo only handicaps, favourites have actually made a small profit in this month. 3yo handicap favourites have had 194 wins from 663 runners (SR 29.3%) for a small profit to SP of £7.28 (ROI +1.1%). This profit edges up to £40.68 (ROI +6.1%) when betting at BSP.
Looking at a relatively poor favourite stat now from April handicaps – horses that were favourite in 4yo+ handicaps won 23.2% of the time, but lost nearly 16p in the £ to SP (12p to BSP).
April Favourites by age
A look at the age of favourites now. Having seen the 3yo handicap data, I am expecting that age group to edge this:
As I had expected 3yo favourites across all race types have secured the best results – in terms of strike rate, return on investment, A/E index and Impact Value. 3yo favourites actually would have broken even to BSP if backing every single one in April going back to 2012. One age group where favourites perform relatively poorly in this month is 2yos. If we graph 2yo favourites across all months we can see that April is the month with the lowest strike rate, and compared to May to August there is a significant difference. (I have not included March as there were on 13 2yo favourites in total during the time frame).
Hence I would be wary of backing 2yo favourites at this time of the year. This makes sense as, in most 2yo races in April there is virtually zero form to go on, with 73% of juveniles making their debut in this month. This is likely to be a key factor in the lowish strike rate.
With 2yo favourites struggling a little there must have been value elsewhere. Amazingly perhaps, if you had backed all 2yos 5th or bigger in the betting market you would have made a profit, even to Industry SP! OK, the profit would have only been £38 to £1 level stakes which equates to around 3½p in the £. To BSP, though, these figures would have seen around £500 in profit, returning over 45p in the £. On average you would have only had 5 or 6 winners from roughly 100 bets each year, and there were five winning Aprils out of the 10. I wonder if there are any brave punters out there who will try this out in 2023?!
Trainers: April Turf Flat Racing
Let us now analyse trainers on the turf in the month of April. Let me begin by looking at the ten-year figures as a whole. I have included trainers who had at least 100 runs in April and have secured a strike rate of 11% or more, and I have ordered them by strike rate:
There is a fair smattering of profit as you can see – just under half the trainers on the list have proved profitable to SP. It should be noted that this will often be due to the odd big priced winner. Hence let us look at trainer performance with only the runners priced in single figures (minimum runs 60):
There are now nine trainers in profit to SP; however this figure increases to 15 if using BSP.
Let's dig into Charlie Appleby who heads both lists – first, here is his overall turf record in April (all prices). 197 of his 213 runners have been priced in single figures and, as the two tables above show, he has made a profit with all runners and with shorter priced runners only. His figures on the face of it are mightily impressive. Appleby's first year with results was 2014 and he had just one winner from 17 runners. From there he has ‘flown’. Here is the yearly breakdown by Win Percentage (SR%):
Five of the eight Aprils have proved profitable to SP; to BSP this becomes six (2017 profitable). Four of the last six Aprils has seen a strike rate in excess of 35% - Appleby has a good record all year round, but he clearly has his string ready to fire from the get-go.
I find it interesting that Appleby's win percentage in handicaps and non-handicaps is remarkably similar, as the next table shows:
There are comparable returns, too, with both race types returning over 20 pence in the £. This shows a good level of consistency. That consistency can also be seen when we look at his returns (ROI%) to SP across different market ranks:
As the bar chart shows Appleby has seen profitable returns across the board. He definitely looks a trainer to keep on the right side of this coming April.
Before moving away from trainers, here are some additional statistics that will hopefully give us more chance of making a profit through the first month of the flat turf season:
Along with Appleby, the following trainers have been profitable to SP with favourites – William Haggas, Roger Varian, John (JJ) Quinn and Richard Fahey.
Roger Varian has proved to be profitable when saddling runners at Newmarket in April thanks to a strike rate close to one in four. Focusing on his runners that started favourite or second favourite, his record at HQ reads a very impressive 13 winners from 22 (SR 59.1%) for a profit to SP of £25.25 (ROI +114.78%). To BSP this improves slightly to returns of 121p in the £.
Irish maestro Aidan O’Brien has not sent many runners over in April, but as a rule they have struggled with just four wins from 49. He is just 3 from 32 with horses priced in single figures, and has had only 1 win from 16 with favourites.
Richard Fahey tends to be a fast starter in April. He has secured profits at the following courses – Catterick, Leicester, Beverley, Redcar and Thirsk. Not only that, but his strike rate at all five courses has been 20% or higher. Horses from his stable that are making their seasonal debut have also made sound profits to SP; to BSP these runners would have returned you a profit in eight of the ten Aprils. In addition to this, Fahey has secured a 23.5% strike rate with his 2yos and six of the ten seasons would have secured profits to BSP. His overall figures with his 2yos show a 24p in the £ return to SP, 40p to BSP.
If you are looking for a trainer to spring a surprise in April, then Richard Hannon is arguably the most likely. He has saddled eight winners priced 25/1 or bigger in April from only 72 qualifiers. The next best any other trainer has achieved in the time frame is three wins – one of those, Tim Easterby, had 250 qualifiers to obtain those three wins!
Last time Out (LTO) Factors
The final area I wish to look at in this piece is connected with LTO factors. Firstly, a look at the race code of the last run. Now, because all weather racing goes on all the year round, there is a good percentage of turf runners in April that had raced on the sand LTO. Some horses also raced LTO in a National Hunt race as the table below indicates. I have added Betfair SP data to the table this time:
LTO runners who raced on flat turf have the best strike rate but to BSP they are the only group to make a loss. Now, of course, big prices can skew vast data sets like this, and so what the data tell me is that there seems no real edge to what type of race code the horse ran in last time out.
Moving onto last time out finishing position – the graph below gives us the spread in strike rates:
It is interesting to see horses that finished second LTO actually won slightly more frequently than LTO winners (in percentage terms). As a rule the graph shows the normal type of trending down as we go from left to right. LTO winners actually have broken even to BSP, so don’t be put off by a horse that won LTO, even if that win occurred the previous turf season.
MAIN TAKEWAYS for APRIL TURF FLAT RACES
As far as the market is concerned, second favourites have proved to best value, especially to BSP.
Favourites have produced very similar returns in non-handicaps and handicaps.
Favourites in 3yo only handicaps have made a small profit.
2yo favourites generally under-perform, as do favourites in 4yo+ handicaps.
Charlie Appleby tends to start the season in very good form. His runners deserve close scrutiny regardless of price.
Favourites from the yards of Charlie Appleby, William Haggas, Roger Varian, John Quinn and Richard Fahey have been profitable in the past ten Aprils.
Roger Varian has an excellent record at Newmarket, especially with horses from the top two in the betting.
Aidan O’Brien is one of the best in the business but his UK runners in April have really struggled recently.
Richard Fahey is a trainer to generally keep on the right side of.
LTO winners have broken even to BSP during the period of study.
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So there we have it; hopefully this article will help your punting this month. It is not an easy month to make a profit so I would urge selectivity where possible.
However, before I go, as a bonus here are three pointers to the first big meeting of the year at Doncaster.
Favourites have had a poor record in the last ten meetings losing 31p in the £ to BSP. Favourites have performed particularly poorly in handicaps with just 10 wins from 93, losing 43 pence in the £ to BSP. Odds on favourites have made a small profit however (11 wins from 15).
Third, fourth and fifth favourites have all made a profit to BSP.
Richard Hannon is the only trainer to secure a strike rate in excess of 20% from those trainers who have had at least 25 runners (11 wins from 52).
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Johan_Lincoln_Doncaster_April2022.png319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-03-27 15:14:312023-03-27 15:14:31April on the Flat: Focusing on the turf
Another big international meeting, the fourth of its stature since October, Dubai World Cup night following the Saudi Cup last month, the Breeders’ Cup in early November and the Arc meeting in late summer has been and gone; naturally, with a sideways acknowledgement to Champions Day back home in Ascot soon after the Arc, writes Tony Stafford.
Three conclusions occurred to me after Saturday’s latest extravaganza at Meydan. First, that the world’s biggest races nowadays seem ever more susceptible to older horses. Second, the Japanese can win the world’s most valuable and coveted international events more readily nowadays than anyone else, be they on dirt or turf.
And then thirdly, a question. What has happened to all those multiple-coloured caps of strongly fancied members of the home team that used to mop up at their leisure each last Saturday in March as we looked on, marvelling, from back home?
From the moment Coolmore- and Japanese-shared seven-year-old entire Broome swooped late under Ryan Moore to deny Siskany in the two-mile Dubai Gold Cup, the second race on Saturday’s card, Charlie Appleby and William Buick were reduced to an unaccustomed minor role, which was even more surprising given the astonishing success they had all over Europe in the previous 12 months at the highest level.
True, they did go close once more, when Nation’s Pride looked a possible winner before finishing a creditable, close third behind Frankie Dettori and last year’s runner-up Lord North in the Dubai Turf. This was one race with multiple representation for the boys in blue, with Appleby’s second string in 9th and Saeed bin Suroor’s one runner in 13th place behind the Gosdens’ globe-trotting gelding who is also seven.
A feature of World Cup night since its inception in 1996 has been the ability to attract top horses from around the world. With almost half the races confined to dirt, the poor record of European horses in those races was to be expected, whereas the Americans licked their lips and, from the outset, filled their boots. For the record, Michael Stoute with Singspiel in the second-ever running 26 years ago, remains the only UK-trained winner of the Dubai World Cup itself.
Such was, and still is, the draw of massive money that Cigar, undisputed world champion at six years of age when he turned up, led credence to the event and, over the years, some of the greatest US stars were tempted with Curlin, Animal Kingdom and in 2017 Arrogate, all, plucking the prize.
In all, 11 American horses have won the race, an equal figure with the home team, whose first nine wins (eight for Godolphin, one for Sheikh Hamdan) were all supplied by Saeed bin Suroor. The disgraced Mahmood al Zarooni (replaced by Appleby to such brilliant effect over the past decade) and Kiaran McLoughlin, by Doug Watson, an American who has been based in Dubai for 30 years, had one each.
There was much celebrating when Doug’s 6yo gelding Danyah, a 33/1 shot trained for Shadwell Farm, won the Al Quoz Sprint on Turf. Another winter Dubai hardy annual in the Hamdan colours, Dane O’Neill took the riding plaudits.
The last US winner of the World Cup was Country Grammar, as a 5yo last year, when he was a fourth success in the race for Bob Baffert. Since that big money win, Country Grammer was emphatically put in his place by the one horse of the last couple of years whose presence would have been greatly welcomed, but Flightline is already going through his paternal duties at stud in the US.
Flightline beat Country Grammer on his final unbeaten career start in last year’s Pacific Classic at Del Mar by 19.5 lengths, never mind that otherwise the Baffert horse hadn’t been out of the first two for a couple of years.
Second in the Saudi Cup last year before stepping up to win the big one at Meydan, he followed a similar route this time around. He again ran a good second in Riyadh but on Saturday, carrying Frankie Dettori’s hopes of a fifth win in the race as a 52-year-old in his final year as an international rider, he bombed and finished only seventh.
The winner in what developed into an interesting contest, if one lacking glamour and a serious home challenge, was the Japanese Ushba Tesoro. This 6yo entire from Japan was the country’s second winner of the race, by a widening margin from the Crisfords’ (father and son) year-younger Algiers. The previous Japanese-trained winner, in 2011, was Victoire Pisa.
Algiers is a rarity for a horse trained in the UK, being a dirt specialist, and he warmed up for Saturday with two wide-margin victories on the surface. James Doyle had the ride and for once wasn’t upstaged by his friend and colleague Buick, as this race carried £2 million for the runner- up – the winner got £5.8 million!
Ryan Moore was another UK jockey earning his corn, and there is no question that over the past year the former champion has got his best form back. He timed the challenge on Broome around the outside to a nicety on turf and then switched to an equally masterful display on Sibelius, trained by Florida-based Jeremiah O’Dwyer. Jerry has added two syllables and a new career thousands of miles away, since being banned from riding for 18 months in the UK 12 years ago.
Jerry was a likeable Irish journeyman, based in Newmarket, but his involvement with Sabre Light, late in 2008, cost him his riding career. A horse that was switched from Alan Bailey to Jeff Pearce earlier that year became Jerry’s regular mount, and one on which he won several times initially.
The case, I seem to recall, involved a couple of runs a little later and revolved around the horse not winning when certain individuals thought he should (or was it the other way round? – it was the other way around – Ed.) and then needing to put it right next time, whichever way round that was.
It took ages for the authorities to bring the case. Apart from Pearce, who also lost his trainer’s licence – wife Lydia and later son Simon taking over – another former handler, who had won a Classic some years before but by then had handed in his licence, was also rumoured at the time to have known what had been (or not) happening.
Now all these years later, there’s Jerry, proving that everyone deserves a second chance and the fact he trains Sibelius for Japanese connections suggests he might well progress further in his new career.
If there was an equine star on the Meydan card, it had to be Equinox, winner of the Golden Shaheen over 1m4f on the turf. Even money to win for the fourth time in only six starts (plus two close 2nds), he now has £8million in earnings after dominating this from start to finish.
This was another nice payday for Ryan, aboard Westover, the £1 million runner-up, albeit closer at three-odd lengths than the ability gulf between the horses truly represents. Still, it was a good run for trainer Ralph Beckett’s 2022 Irish Derby winner and nice for Ryan not to have a rear view of him this time.
One unsung hero in the World Cup, formerly owned and bred by Alan Spence and the Hargreaves’ and a regular winner for Clive Cox, was 8yo Salute The Soldier. He was only eighth in the big race but won a Group 1 (his second over there) the previous time and has earned more than £1m for Bahrein-based Fawzi Nass.
Alan Spence had something closer to home to celebrate on Friday when his veteran hurdler On The Blind Side won for the Nicky Henderson stable at 50/1. “Were you on, Alan?” I asked. “Not a penny”, he replied, “but am I Happy? Delighted!”
Just so, Anthony Honeyball, whose debutant Crest Of Glory, a 4yo gelding, won the £60k to the winner Goffs UK Spring Sale Bumper. He strode 15 lengths clear of 18 opponents which included a stable companion by the same sire, owned by a Geegeez syndicate. “He had an awful run!” said the Editor. “We’ll bring him back next season all being well, when we have high hopes of him.”
Oh, the name? It’s Dartmoor Pirate. By the same sire, Black Sam Bellamy as the winner, he was seventh despite the difficult run and is rated pretty useful - which the winner must also be!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ushbatesoro_DWC_2023.png319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-03-27 08:30:332023-03-28 17:40:40Monday Musings: Old Stagers
So, how was Cheltenham for you? Game of two halves for me, Brian, with the second something of a disaster compared to the first, writes David Massey. It's normally the other way around; normally I'm grateful to come out of the first two days level, then when the stamina kicks in on the New Course I tend to do better (I can just find slow horses, that's all) as the week goes on. Not this year, though. I could have done with Cheltenham finishing Wednesday night.
Let us start at the very beginning. I began the week at Stratford with my good friend Becky, who I was staying over with Monday night before moving on to Worcester for the rest of the week. I normally stay with her all Cheltenham week but since she moved house a couple of years ago I have to bring my own inflatable bed along, and my back simply won't take a week of that. Last year I was so crippled by the time the Foxhunters came around I could barely walk. So this year I shared a house with Rob and the S&D Bookmaker crew, merely so I could have the luxury of a proper bed at night.
Stratford was windy but I did find a couple of winners to start the week off on the right note and get the fish 'n' chips in with on the way back. Up bright and breezy next morning, I was all ready to get out to the track for an early start but Becky, who is one of the Cheltenham photographers for the week, looked like death warmed up. She'd been coughing a bit on the Monday and that had developed into a chest infection overnight. Cheltenham week is knackering enough if you're fit; if you've not passed the vet, it's a sight harder. I set off, Becky following on later.
I make my first mistake of the week having parked up. Starving and in need of breakfast, there's a chuck wagon doing bacon rolls for six quid. I eagerly purchase and wolf it down as I enter the track. Imagine my joy at finding out the media centre, which is where I'll be this week, is giving out bacon rolls for free to those there early enough. Six quid the worse off, I decide to have one of the free ones, simply so I can average out the bacon rolls at three quid a piece, which hurts less that it did.
I'm with the Sporting Life team this week, which is great, and "Scoop" Linfoot is already busy beavering away. I write up the morning tips with Rory Delargy, based in the dead-tree press room in the main building; for all that the facilities are a little better in there, I'd rather be where I am, based behind the weighing room, as the walk to the paddock is a lot shorter. (Over the four days I shall do over 60,000 steps. Compare that to the Saturday and Sunday that follow where you'll be lucky if I shift me ar*e off the sofa.)
It's good to catch up with people I haven't seen for a year and, in some cases, more, and by the time I've done that and digested Thursday's declarations it's lunch, and then the Supreme.
I've no great opinion on the Supreme but Tahmuras looks really well beforehand and just for a moment I imagine the Brits getting off to a wonder start and giving the Irish a bloody nose on the first bell. It doesn't last long. Tahmuras is well stuffed behind Marine Nationale, the Irish saddling the first eight home.
There's a wonderful moment in the Arkle as the big screen in the paddock reveals Straw Fan Jack finishing with a flourish for fourth, with trainer Sheila Lewis and connections going absolutely bonkers. You'd have thought they'd have won it! How wonderful it must have been for all of them to be in the winners enclosure for such a big Grade 1 event. I was delighted for them all, in much the same way I was a couple of days later for Laura Morgan and co when Notlongtillmay finished second in the Turners. It means so much for the supposed smaller yards when they have horses like these that perform so well on the big stages.
Corach Rambler and The Big Breakaway carry my hopes in the Ultima. The latter is beaten after two fences, some early scrimmaging putting paid to his chances (put a line through this, I still think he could run a big one in the National) but it's deja vu all over again as Corach Rambler storms up the Cheltenham run-in to claim the prize for the second year running.
We all want Constitution Hill to be good and my word, he is, barely coming out of second gear to dispose of State Man et al. Then Honeysuckle brings the house down to win the Mares and it seems the world and his dog is in the winners enclosure, all showing their love for Henry de Bromhead, Rachael Blackmore and the amazing mare.
I'm in the paddock to look at them for the Boodles when, standing beside me, seemingly out of nowhere, is Junglist Matt Hancock. I think about asking what he fancies when I realise that could be a leading question and think better of it.
I like Jazzy Matty in the paddock and invest accordingly. A pleasing result follows as he wins at 18s. Mr Freedom, despite the pilot almost falling off turning in, gets me a nice bit of place money too (where would we be without extra places these days?) and I call it a day on the betting front, heading for the car park as the jolly old favourite wins the National Hunt Chase. A bad day for the books.
Wednesday. Delargy is staying in Worcester too, and I go and pick him up early doors. Sadly the traffic on the M5 is so awful it takes us an hour to get to the track. The free bacon rolls are long gone by the time we are in; in desperation I go hunter-gathering for breakfast and end up with a sausage bap. A bargain at seven notes.
I'm waiting for a couple of friends to turn up in the Vestey Bar around 11am when Pat Neville walks in. He's clearly waiting for someone too. I cannot help but think if his was a Henderson or a Nicholls he'd been getting mobbed by lads asking for tips, but nobody seems to recognise Pat. I go and wish him good luck with The Real Whacker and he thanks me, and tells me he thinks he'll go close. He does better than that as once again, he makes light of Cheltenham's fences in the Brown Advisory and wins by a short-head from the fast-finishing Gerri Colombe. I suspect more people will recognise Pat now. Having backed the Whacker and laid Sir Gerhard for a place my punting is going terrifically, too.
It's a shame that Edwardstone leaves his A-game at home and in the end, Energumene is a facile winner of the Champion Chase. I think we were all hoping for a proper contest and that, sadly, fails to materialise. That's no fault of Energumene, of course, but you want the best horses to perform in the big races and Edwardstone didn't.
The previous week I'd done a piece for the Life with Ed Chamberlin where Ed was utterly disgusted that I'd said Delta Work was the best bet of the week. I'd already had one good bet on him and after seeing him in the paddock, went in again. Turning in I was worried Galvin might do for him but he battled on in a most game fashion to score. Ed childishly sticks his tongue out at me as I walk across the paddock afterwards, but I don't give a monkey's as the nap goes in for the week. I even manage a cheeky each-way fourth on Lecky Watson at 80s in the bumper to finish the day off. My best start to a Cheltenham ever.
If only we had stopped there.
Wednesday night and Thursday morning it rains. Cleverly I get up early Thursday morning, pile into everything that wants it genuinely soft, thinking I'll be in a great position later to trade out of them all. We're in time for the bacon rolls and having tipped the tea-bar lady a fiver when things were going well yesterday, I'm offered two of them. I do not refuse this most generous gesture.
If the nap was Delta Work then Banbridge was the NB, but unsurprisingly he'd been taken out with the rain that had fallen. Money back on most of the ante-posts, so no great damage done. However, once Stage Star wins the Turners and Good Time Jonny the Pertemps it becomes blindingly clear that it certainly isn't soft, and it's only just good to soft, the wind drying things out, and all my morning bets and going to be sunk. The majority of them drift like the Kon-Tiki, and there's no way out of this. Worse, I've shoved them all in multiples, and the value of them now is some way south of the price of a bacon roll. Fugitif offers me some hope in the Plate, but he finds Seddon too good, and by the end of the day I've given back well over half of what I've accumulated in the first couple of days. On the way out I buy a Mars Bar as compensation; it is barely bigger than a Fun Size one. No fun for me today, that's for sure.
Steaks are on the menu Thursday night and Rob tells us about his week so far, two lousy days and one brilliant one. He's confident a few results Friday will see him in front. Rory joins us on the evening and gets pelters from myself for ordering a cocktail for dessert. What's wrong with a sticky toffee pudding? He's not the bloke I thought he was...
I wonder how much that cocktail affected him as at 7am Friday morning I get a text from him. He'd moved hotels the previous day and clearly couldn't sleep. "Any chance we can go early? This place is haunted..."
It is not for me to steal Rory's story, but he was convinced he'd been visited in the night by a cat. "I felt it jump on the bed, then jump over me, and settle down next to me." Having put the light on and seen no cat, he tells me, he started Googling "ghost cats" at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. On enquiring at reception whether the hotel has a cat, he was told no, "but there was one once". He can't get out of the place quick enough.
By Gold Cup morning there are some tired faces around the media centre. Carol Vorderman appears and does some interviews. Two from the top, please Carol. She's followed in by someone who has been in Love Island; being old I know not who she is, but she seems very sprightly.
Becky, who has been on the Fisherman's Friends all week, looks no better than she did Tuesday when she arrives and looks ready for it all to be over. She has my sympathy. A mid-morning coffee with a friend ends with us chucking £25 a piece into a placepot, which lasts two legs but no further. In fact there aren't many going at all after three legs and the Foxhunters will see the rest of them off, just about. Premier Magic, winning at 66-1, had recently been successful at my local point, Garthorpe. Did I have a penny on? What do you reckon? A tenner each-way on Shantou Flyer, who has been to more Cheltenham Festivals than most racegoers, softened the blow, but for me the week is done. After expenses, a small profit. I hit the M5 soon after to avoid the worst of the traffic and am home for seven.
Aintree next. I'm back on the firm and will be working in the ring, so I'll tell you exactly how small the dresses were on Ladies Day in the next instalment...
- DM
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/PremierMagic_CheltenhamFestival2023.png319830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2023-03-22 15:51:052023-03-22 15:51:05Roving Reports: The Carnival is Over…
Where to start about Cheltenham? Ever since the race following the Gold Cup on Friday afternoon, I resolved to write about a 66/1 winner that if we bothered (or had the time) to look closely at all the form, we could have been laughing all the way, if not to the bank, certainly to make a dent in our gas and electricity balances, writes Tony Stafford.
Earlier in the day a friend asked me to offer a shortie and a an each-way alternative for the last six races – Lossiemouth had already dotted in when he called. I won’t go into my unambitious, yet unsuccessful, calls, but I did have an opinion on the St James Place Festival Challenge Cup Hunter Chase.
I had a memory of the name Vaucelet, stablemate and chosen entry of three fancies for David Christie, whose Winged Leader was runner-up last year to the famed Irish standing dish Billaway, giving his Northern Ireland-based handler a change of luck. The old-timer Billaway was again in the field and was destined to fall before the action heated up.
Vaucelet had come over to the UK twice for races at the big May hunter chase showcase at Stratford. In 2021 he won the novice championship as a 6yo and a 4/1 shot, while a month after a Punchestown near-miss, behind Billaway, Vaucelet collected the Championship Hunter Chase, sponsored by Pertemps in the 63rd running for the Horse and Hound Cup.
He preceded the first UK win with hunter/point form figures that season of 21111 and since it, he’s gone 113112111. No wonder, you (as I did) might say, he was the 9/4 favourite in the 23 runner field.
Yet hiding in that line up, freely available at 66/1, was a horse that had started 11/4 off levels with Vaucelet in that Stratford novice championship.
This horse, namely Premier Magic, made the running that day and had just been headed before stumbling after jumping the last. He rallied on the flat but could do no better than a close third. He was pulled up in last year’s Cheltenham race but had the excuse of being badly crowded coming down the hill.
When he came back for that second shot against Billaway and Vaucelet, he had since been confined to point-to-points by his Welsh-based trainer and rider, Bradley Gibbs.
If Vaucelet had busily been picking up the pots on offer in the pointing field across the water, our unsung hero had been similarly campaigned. From March 2020 to Stratford in May 2021, his form figures were 21111. Since the defeat there, it was 11111 before Friday. His last win came by 14 lengths in the open at Garthorpe in February when an 8/11 favourite.
Yet he started 66/1 at Cheltenham last week! He was lucky to be clear of the late scrimmaging caused by loose horses, but he battled on genuinely, hardly a surprise with all those wins on his record. Meanwhile Vaucelet was struggling home in seventh.
Take a bow, Bradley Gibbs and Premier Magic. Some of those point-to-point experts will have been either rubbing their hands or cursing their lack of faith having backed or missed such a potential goldmine horse. I must give Jonathan Neesom a call to ask him if he had a few quid on.
Bradley Gibbs trains the horse for his partner’s father and was publicly grateful for the support given to him in developing their yard in Wales. None of the big names at the other end of the ownership rainbow would have been more deserving of satisfaction at their work of the past three years with this son of Court Cave.
As well as a Welsh winner, there was also a better-known Scottish-trained winner as Corach Rambler repeated last year’s victory in the Ultima Handicap Chase off a 6lb higher mark. This was only his 3rd run since and when Tom Scudamore came to the preview night in London he predicted this success, also that he would follow up in the Grand National.
Tom’s father, Peter Scudamore, is partner and assistant trainer to Lucinda Russell, so an element of insider information was involved there. On that preview event, at one point I was asked my bet of the week and repeated what I’d mentioned in my column here, Langer Dan on Thursday; but, by race day, I’d forgotten all about it.
So, what else from the week? I could go through the 18-10 Ireland domination over the home team, or talk about Constitution Hill, Honeysuckle and plenty more, but I imagine you’ve seen and read plenty about all of that. I’ll look for something different.
When the rain came, my thoughts were that on soft ground the potential for, if not catastrophe, then certainly mishaps, would be greatly increased. There were upwards of 400 runners over the four days and the quality of the preparation of these horses was such that only 12 were documented as having fallen. To those, you could add five unseated, with the odd horse brought down.
More predictable was the 80 pulled up, around 20 per cent of the total. Most unlikely was the Ultima which, as I’ve mentioned, was won by Corach Rambler. He headed home the Martin Brassil-trained Fastorslow, Jonjo O’Neill’s Monbeg Genius and another Irishman in The Goffer, the front four in the betting.
Notably unflattering outcomes for the home team were the opening Supreme Novice Hurdle on day one when the first eight home were trained in Ireland, unusually with Barry Connell the winning trainer (and owner) rather than Willie Mullins. The half-mile longer Ballymore on the second day provided a 1-2-3 for Mullins and he gained revenge on Connell, who predicted his Good Land would win. Eventually, with his horse fourth some way behind the Mullins trio, the status quo restored.
There was never a doubt that the Mullins fillies would dominate the Triumph Hurdle on Friday. Perhaps the most remarkable fact of this race was that all five of the expensively acquired arrivals from France in the spring last year stood their ground, never mind the soft ground.
Lossiemouth pulled almost from the off, but this time getting a clear wide course under Paul Townend, she had far too much class for stablemate Gala Marceau, who had beaten her when she got a nightmare run at the Dublin Racing Festival, and Zenta, a close third. Susanna Ricci, Honeysuckle’s owner Kenny Alexander, and J P McManus are the proud owners of the flying fillies. It was miles back to the first gelding, also Mullins-trained.
The trio of UK runners were 11th, 13th and pulled up.
But there was isolated and not so isolated fighting back where Paul Nicholls and former pupil dan Skelton were concerned. Nicholls won two of the Grade 1 races (Stage Star in the Turners’ and Stay Away Fay in the Albert Bartlett), backing up Champion Hurdle win number nine for Nicky Henderson with Constitution Hill. He was also an excellent second with Bravemansgame behind flying Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs from the Mullins team.
Once again Skelton pulled a couple of handicap rabbits out of the hat. It took Langer Dan three Festivals to win his race in the Coral Cup, but less expected was Bridget Andrews’ (Mrs Harry Skelton to her tradesmen) win on Faivoir, denying four Irish rivals pursuing her up the hill. She’s done it before – with Mohaayed, also in the County Hurdle, also at 33/1, and also trained by Dan Skelton – and is always a name to look out for in these highly competitive races with hosts of dangerous invaders to worry about.
In fact, the Skeltons do it so often, it’s almost as if it’s planned! Some operation that, and they know what’s needed to beat the Irish in any race at the Festival. We can’t wait for the next one.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/PremierMagic_CheltenhamFestival2023.png319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-03-20 07:15:052023-03-20 07:15:06Monday Musings: Big Priced Winners Hiding in Plain Sight
We're onto Give Back Friday, which is bad news if you're already in negative equity. Traditionally the hardest of the four days, this year Day Four looks as fiendish as ever. Still, where there's light there's hope...
1.30 Triumph Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m1f)
Time was when the Triumph Hurdle, for four-year-old novices only, could throw up a shock or three. And, in 2019, the winner was returned 20/1 in spite of being unbeaten in one over hurdles and trained by Nicky Henderson; a year later, in 2020, the winner was 12/1 even though she was unbeaten in one over hurdles and trained by Willie Mullins. Go figure.
With the advent of the Fred Winter (Boodles) handicap for the same age group, Triumph fields tend to be a little thinner these days: the average field was 26 between 1997 and 2004, compared with 16 since 2005, the first year of Fred Boodles. In the past five years, the average field size has been just eleven runners. Yet this time, we have 15, in a few cases as a result of the Boodles over-subscribing and, therefore, the dreaded 'social runners'.
In recent seasons, only Henderson (twice) and Philip Hobbs have managed to repel the Irish raiders, and this season looks virtually certain to result in another 'away win'. That man Willie - Triumph winner in 2020 and 2022 - and before he was a 'thing' in 2002, with Scolardy, ridden by Charlie Swan - has the market in a half nelson this time, courtesy of his t'riffic triumvirate of Lossiemouth, Blood Destiny and Gala Marceau, along with four others!
Lossiemouth was considered the pick of the Closutton squad, even though she finished behind Gala Marceau in the key prep, the Spring Juvenile Hurdle. There, she endured a difficult transit and Gala scampered clear. There's no doubt Lossie was unlucky in second, and there's little doubt that the margin would have been narrower with a clear passage for her; but the market has them further apart than perhaps they ought to be. Gala Marceau was having her first run away from France when a seven length second to Lossiemouth the time before, and she would have narrowed that margin the last day regardless of clear or troubled trips in behind. She has more experience and could improve again.
Blood Destiny is harder to fathom, having not yet faced Graded company. He was second to Bo Zenith, whose limitations have since been exposed, in France before Willie sent him unbeaten in two. He won his maiden by five lengths in a field of 20 from Sir Allen (two from two since), and then sauntered 18 lengths clear of 131-rated Common Practice and subsequent Adonis Hurdle winner, Nusret.
Still Willie has more. Zenta won a Listed hurdle at Auteuil, jumping flawlessly, and was again brilliant - apart from annihilating the flights in the straight! - at Fairyhouse (Grade 3) last time. I wonder if the sun was in their eyes that day because those blemishes were out of character with everything else she'd done. Mullins suggested it might have been because she was in front, in which case she'll be ridden patiently in the Triumph. She has a similar profile to Burning Victory and is a big price in that context.
Milton Harris has enjoyed an incredible renaissance in the past two seasons, plenty of which is down to his inspired campaigning of juvenile hurdlers. The flag-bearer in that discipline this term is Scriptwriter, bought off the flat from Aidan O'Brien and a winner of his first two hurdle races. That double included the Grade 2 Prestbury Juvenile Hurdle here; but he's since run a close second to Comfort Zone - again at Cheltenham - and, more concerningly, was thumped in the Adonis. Perhaps that more speed-favouring hurdle track did for him, or maybe he was feeling the effects of some hard races; either way, he's now a precarious proposition in this company.
The rest don't look good enough, though Je Garde is a total unknown after a debut third at Auteuil. The winner has won her two starts since, and the runner up won next time, too, all in and around Paris, so the form - in French terms at least - stacks up.
Triumph Hurdle Pace Map
Not one to take too literally with the limited amount of form on the table; but it would be wrong-headed to think that (at least) one of the Willie's won't go to the front. It might be Blood Destiny, but not necessarily.
Triumph Hurdle Selection
This is a Willie cartel. It's not a question of whether he wins but with which of his many options he does so. Lossiemouth and Gala Marceau should be in close proximity to each other, while Zenta and especially Blood Destiny are unknowns at this level and could be better or, more probably, worse than the G1 proven pair. Lossiemouth is the most solid and probably ought to be favourite on track performances; but obviously the yard has a line on the perceived hierarchy.
Suggestion: Tricasts or trifectas with Lossiemouth/Gala Marceau, and Blood Destiny/Zenta, might be a way to get almost everything right about the race and still lose money!
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2.10 County Hurdle (Grade 3 Handicap, 2m1f)
For such an open handicap, this race has been dominated by a handful of trainers in recent times. Paul Nicholls bagged four of them between 2004 and 2014, Dan Skelton - Nicholls' protégé - claimed three of his own between 2016 and 2019, and, of course, Willie Mullins has his fingerprints all over this trophy as well: six wins since 2010. That's 13 of the last 19 County Hurdles shared among them.
If we, sensibly, extend the sequence to 20 races to render it slightly less arbitrary, we will note that six of the remaining seven renewals were won by another Irish trainer. So, in the past two decades, the score reads W Mullins 6, rest of Ireland 6, P Nicholls 4, D Skelton 3, rest of UK 1. This is a handicap that has been contested by 24+ horses in all but one of those 20 years. Wow.
My shortlist is Sharjah, Hunters Yarn, Path d'Oroux and Pembroke.
Sharjah is top weight, and that's because he has been there, seen it, done it. He's in the Arctic Fire mould of Willie County winners, as a dual Grade 1 winner just 15 months ago. Though he might be a touch below that level now, he's still run close to State Man twice this season before a lovely trial for this at Gowran last time. He's going to cruise all over these through the race and then it's a question of whether either of age and/or weight tell in the closing stages. They might not.
Willie also saddles Hunters Yarn, a high class novice and winner of his last two hurdling starts, most recently a Listed novice at Navan. He bolted up there, in a small field, and was 13 lengths too good for two dozen rivals on his previous run; but this is a significant step up in class. The fact he's handled a big field is a plus and I have already backed him; I'd be less attracted by his current odds from a value perspective, however.
Lower down the field is the potentially very kindly weighted Path d'Oroux. This fellow won a bumper and a maiden hurdle, both in huge fields, before his sights were raised to Grade 1 novice company. He pulled up behind Supreme winner Marine Nationale on his first attempt, and was then fourth to Supreme runner up Facile Vega on his second G1 try, beaten far enough. An easy score in lesser grade since will have boosted confidence and he might be a 'lurker' for his shrewd trainer, Gavin Cromwell.
The best of the British could very well be the Dan Skelton-trained Pembroke, whose profile screams County Hurdle. A lightly raced novice having won his bumper this time last year, he was seventh to Grade 1-winning Tahmuras on seasonal bow. He then easily won a pair of novice hurdles, one in a big field, before running second in the Grade 2 novice on Trials day over two and a half miles. That will have been a perfect prep for this and, if anyone can from this side of the water, Dan can, with easily the best race record in the past decade.
Many more can win, natch, including Filey Bay, an Emmet Mullins-trained runner who has done everything he can to show the UK handicapper he's not as good as he actually is, while still winning twice and running second in the Betfair Hurdle last time. He also has a lovely racing weight but a commensurately skinny quote.
County Hurdle Pace Map
The Chris Gordon pair may be to the fore, as might something from the Mullins quartet; and so might a number of others. This is unlikely to be a pedestrian gallop.
County Hurdle Selection
The more I look at this, the more I think old boy Sharjah (8/1) still retains more than enough talent to overcome his weight allocation. He has no secrets from the handicapper, but sometimes the good ones just win, don't they? And I think 9/1 Pembroke is sure to run well, even allowing for the hard time UK novices have had against their Irish counterparts. He's with the right man, and has a featherweight to carry. I'll probably have a small bit of 16/1 Path d'Oroux as well. Keep the extra place concessions in mind again here.
Suggestion: Back a few each way with extra places, perhaps including some/all of the above trio.
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2.50 Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle (Grade 1, 3m)
The Spuds Race. Ten years ago, At Fishers Cross won at a starting price of 11/8. Since then, eight winners have returned a double figure SP, including 50/1 and 33/1 twice. Willie Mullins has had winners at 16/1 and, last year, 18/1 since 2017. It's that sort of a race.
There are lots of credible horses at the top of the market, notably another Emmet green and golder, Corbetts Cross (who did remarkably well to win over two miles last time), Hiddenvalley Lake and Favori de Champdou. Literally nobody will be shocked if one of those, or Three Card Brag or Embassy Gardens, wins. But that's not the way to play this race, is it?
We need to ask, and answer, the question, "why do so many big prices win the Spuds?"
My contention - and a lot of other peoples', also - is that it is to do with the juxtaposition of pace between the trial races and the Albert Bartlett itself. In plain English, five runner 2m6f Grade 2's do not translate well to 16-runner three mile Grade 1's. In the latter, they go faster and demand less class but more stamina and steel.
A quick look at some of those big priced winners reveals an identikit of sorts:
The Nice Guy was stepping up more than half a mile in trip after winning a huge field maiden
Vanillier was another big field maiden scorer before getting outpaced in an 8 runner race. Was wrong in G1 before Cheltenham
Minella Indo was 3rd in small field maiden and 2nd in a small field Grade 3 (3m) before relishing this stiffer test
Kilbricken Storm won at Cheltenham (3m) before getting outpaced/not handling heavy in G1 (2m5f)
Penhill had actually won a small field 3m G2 on his prior start and was just a big price on the day
Very Wood was stepping up to 3m for the first time having finished 3rd of 3 over 2m4f
Small field preps, up in trip seem to be the main clues. Let's see if that can be applied to anything at a bumper price this year...
Sandor Clegane fits the bill but is too short a price having run third in a G1 last time. I'm unashamedly swinging at the big odds here and obviously that probably means a losing bet; but the risk/reward ratio is in our favour based on the nature of the beast.
Gigginstown-owned and Gordon Elliott-trained is Search For Glory, keeping on in third behind subsequent G1 winner and Ballymore fourth Good Land over 2m4f; and then keeping on for a much closer third over 3m in a five-runner Grade 3 last time. He's very interesting for this assignment.
Affordale Fury is trained by Noel Meade, who saddled 33/1 Very Wood in 2014. A winner from the front in a 14-runner maiden (2m6f, soft), he then fell at the last when contesting in a 2m4f G3. Most recently he was outpaced all the way in the G1 Lawlor's of Naas (2m4f, soft) but made some minor headway. I'm not sure that's good enough even when looking through the big-priced prism.
Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle Pace Map
Expect many fewer than the number which start to finish. There is plenty of pace on, and it will be the tough and hardy blokes over the classy but flimsy snowflakes - if you'll pardon the phrase - that prevail.
Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle Selection
The horses I'm interested in are all far less credible winners on the evidence of the form book, so if you're following me you need to know they might bomb out completely. In that scenario, win only is the way to go (and we can cry together later when rounding out the minor podium positions!!) - and I'm going with Search For Glory and Sandor Clegane against the top of the market. This is a race where it feels like we'll have a bit of a chance with our windmill-tilting; at least, it often is that way.
Suggestion: Back something that has been getting outpaced in smaller fields and/or over shorter trips. 25/1 Search For Glory and 14/1 Sandor Clegane are my guesses against the field. Lots of more obvious horses, so this is a bet where I'm happy to wave goodbye to the tenner.
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3.30 Cheltenham Gold Cup (Grade 1, 3m 2 1/2f)
This is the big one, the Blue Riband. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is the pinnacle of the sport and is always a fantastic spectacle, though winner-finding can be tricky.
This season, one horse towers above the rest in terms of his chance; that horse is Galopin Des Champs. Trained by, you guessed it, Willie Mullins, Galopin Des Champs won the 2021 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle and would have cruised home in the Turners Novices' Chase a year ago but for falling at the last. Since then, he's won three straight Grade 1's, a novice at Fairyhouse's Easter fixture and two opens this campaign, the John Durkan and the Irish Gold Cup.
The margin of victory in that trio of G1 was scores was 18L, 13L and 8L, and he appeared to answer the stamina question with his three mile win last time - partially, at least. The Gold Cup is, of course, three miles two and a half furlongs, and that's another quarter mile and more than he's gone to date. So will he stay? That's simply not an easy question to answer. His sire, Timos, has had no other runners in Britain or Ireland; himself a German-bred (by Sholokhov out of a Surumu mare), he raced in lower Group class on the level at ten to twelve furlongs. His dam, Manon Des Champs, was by a US-bred stallion, Marchand De Sable, who won a heavy ground ten furlong Group 1 as a two-year-old. Helpful? Not really, I know. Where I get to is that there must be at least some chance he won't stay in a truly-run Gold Cup, especially if the going is on the softer side. But if stamina holds, he is the clear form pick.
There are pro's and con's with all his main market rivals. Let's consider a few, starting with A Plus Tard. The pro's are that he won last year's Gold Cup and was second in the race a year prior; thus, we know he stays, we know he handles the track and we know he has the class to win the race. But the con is a big one: he has only been seen once since this day last year, when bombing out completely in the Betfair Chase, a race in which he'd pulverised his opposition twelve months earlier. Add to that the fact that he was due to run at Christmas - his trainer related to attheraces.com, "he got a bang that ruled him out of Christmas, so we said back in January that we’d go straight to the Gold Cup". You've got to take a lot on trust to side with A Plus Tard at this stage against something of a changing of the guard - some high class second and third season chasers.
One such second season chaser is Bravemansgame, winner of the King George in dominating fashion at Christmas. A look at the Paul Nicholls-trained star's form profile renders most of the names he's been called grossly unfair: as well as that G1 King George, he's won the G1 Challow Hurdle, the G1 Feltham/Kauto Star, and the G2 Charlie Hall. His sole Cheltenham run was at the 2021 Festival when he was third to Bob Olinger in the Ballymore. He tried to make all that day in a bigger field than he's typically faced, and was spent in the run to the line. This season, he's raced more patiently under Harry Cobden, and followed a gutsy win at Wetherby with a classy one at Kempton.
But is he a "flat track bully"? Yuk, it's such a horrible phrase - I apologise for using it; and I only do it to counter the barb. As you can see from the image below, in the 'Profile' section, he's only run on flat tracks over fences - that means he can't handle undulating tracks no more than a horse encountering different underfoot for the first time.
What it does mean is we don't know whether he'll handle it or not; but what we do know is that he has excellent form this season, stays pretty well, jumps well, has class and can be ridden wherever. Given his odds, that's a lot of positives on which to take a chance that he might not handle the track.
This time last year, Noble Yeats was finishing slightly better than midfield in the Ultima Handicap Chase, which is not a well known springboard to the Gold Cup! Of course, he followed that effort up with a dazzling 50/1 triumph in the Grand National. It didn't pan out first time this season at Auteuil but he then doubled up at Wexford (Listed) and Aintree (Grade 2) before running a fair third in the G2 Cotswold Chase in late January. That looked every inch a prep - think last season's Ultima - for his spring targets, which are this race and a defence of his National title. Noble Yeats obviously stays well and he handles any ground, too. It could reasonable be argued that his best form is on flat tracks, too, though.
Stattler was a staying-on second to Galopin Des Champs in the Irish Gold Cup and won the NH Chase at last year's Festival; so he is another second season chaser and has stamina in abundance. He has also demonstrated his aptitude for the track, albeit Old and New courses here are different tests; and he seems to handle most terrain. This season he was just pipped in a sprint (relative, it was heavy ground) finish over 2m6f before beating all bar GdC last time: his is a nicely progressive profile.
Running here rather than the Ryanair, where Conflated fell a year ago when likely booked for second, is a nod to the regard in which his trainer, Gordon Elliott, holds the horse. A look at his form implies this is the right race: a pair of three-mile Grade 1 wins at Leopardstown have been supported by a silver medal in the 3m1f G1 Aintree Bowl, and it's not impossible this longer trip will eke out a couple of pounds further improvement. If it does, he's another who figures on the premises.
Lucinda Russell trains the hugely popular second season chaser Ahoy Senor, second in last year's Brown Advisory Novices' Chase and winner of the G1 Mildmay Novices' Chase at Aintree. This campaign started on the back foot with a hard race in the Charlie Hall, the mark from which was probably left when he ran flat enough at Aintree and Kempton subsequently; but he got right back on track last time when beating Noble Yeats and Sounds Russian in the Cotswold Chase. The problem is that Sounds Russian, though progressive, is some way short of the ability required here; and, further, that Noble Yeats is expected to be a different proposition fitness-wise this time. All that said, Ahoy Senor does have a chance to control the pace and, if doing that easily, may be difficult to shake off in the finish.
One of the great under-rated horses of recent Cheltenham Festivals is Minella Indo. Winner of the 2019 Albert Bartlett (at 50/1!), he showed that was no fluke when running up to Champ in a memorable (for all the wrong reasons if you, like me, punted him) 2020 RSA Chase. Then, at the top table, he won the Gold Cup in 2021 from A Plus Tard, and got closest to that one last year - granted, that was no closer than 15 lengths. He's only had one run this season, a win, in the previously referenced New Year's Day Chase at Tramore. Trainer Henry de Bromhead is calling his quiet lead up "the best preparation he's ever had for Cheltenham" and, even aged 10, his Fez form of 1212 commands plenty of respect: he's been here and got the T-shirt, so to speak.
Two and a half lengths behind Minella Indo last year, and nearly twenty back from A Plus Tard, was Protektorat. On the face of it, he has a mountain to climb; but he was only seven then and one year more mature now - a good age for a Gold Cup challenger. He barrelled clear of the Betfair Chase field in November, scoring by eleven lengths, but was behind Ahoy Senor, Sounds Russian and Noble Yeats in the Cotswold Chase on his sole run since. He was sent off 5/4 favourite there, so presumably was fit enough; nevertheless, he's sure to come on for the run and is another on a very long list of place possibles and, on the Haydock run, not out of it for the win.
There are others with good form that doesn't quite match up to a Gold Cup. Royale Pagaille will again have his followers - all of them rain dancers - and he may again lollop into fourth or fifth; but he's unlikely to get the pace setup, though he may get the deep ground, he needs to outstay smarter oppo.
Cheltenham Gold Cup Pace Map
It might be that Ahoy Senor gets a free hit on the lead, which would be optimal for his legion supporters. There is a group of others who like to race handily and it's no more than evens that something from that cohort contests with the Senor.
Cheltenham Gold Cup Selection
A very tough race to weigh up. If you think Galopin Des Champs will definitely stay, there's your bet as he's looked a Rolls Royce for a couple of seasons. If you don't, or you want to bet something each way, it's trappier. You're asked to take a lot on trust with A Plus Tard, you have to assume Bravemansgame will handle Cheltenham's undulations, or you have to believe that the likes of Minella Indo and Royale Pagaille still retain sufficient verve to mix it with the kids.
Or you can just back Noble Yeats each way and see how close he gets.
Suggestion: Back 9/1 Noble Yeats each way with four or, preferably, five places.
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4.10 Challenge Cup Open Hunters' Chase (Class 2, 3m 2 1/2f)
The hunter chase gold cup (small 'g', small 'c') and always a good - if sometimes faintly bonkers - watch. As with the Gold Cup itself, the previous renewal is often the best form guide. Twelve months ago, it was heartbreak for David Christie and Winged Leader as his notable lead was whittled to nothing a stride from the line and Billaway pipped him. Billaway himself was certainly not winning out of turn, having been second in 2020 and 2021. Although he's eleven now, that's more a positive in a race where the last eight winners were all aged ten or eleven and where there have been three back-to-back winners since 2012.
After Cheltenham last year, Billaway won a thriller against another rising star from the Christie yard, Vaucelet, but, on debut this season, he was thrashed by yet another Christie inmate, Ferns Lock. Since then, Willie Mullins' star hunter has somewhat unconvincingly despatched a lesser field. Though he always brings his 'A game' to Cheltenham, he arrived in slightly better nick the previous twice, I feel. He tends to race on the lead and there might be a little more contention for that this season, which could add a further challenge to his defence.
Vaucelet is the chosen one of Christie's three and, aged eight, would be the youngest winner since Salsify in 2013 (who had also won aged seven a year earlier). Based on his form, youth won't stop him and, as a winner over three and half miles in the Stratford Champion Hunter Chase late last spring, he ought not to fail for stamina either. He's progressive where Billaway might be slightly on the downgrade, the fine margin between them at Punchestown a year ago perhaps not enough in the champ's favour now.
The British challenge - historically strong, as shown by four of the past six winners - is headed up by Chris Barber's Famous Clermont. Another eight-year-old, he's sent the likes of Shantou Flyer and Envious Editor packing this season, including when romping to victory in the Walrus Hunter Chase, a high class contest in the sector run in February. Famous Clermont made a few errors in the Intermediate Final at Cheltenham's April hunter chase meeting last year and was eventually pulled up (as the 6/5 favourite), and his continued propensity for a mistake is a niggle.
Paul Nicholls has won this four times since 2004, with Earthmover, Sleeping Night, and Pacha du Polder twice. Since PdP's last win, in 2018, Nicholls is 0/4, though Bob And Co failed to jump round as his sole representative in the past two seasons - at short prices both times. This year, the Ditcheat yard have Secret Investor as their main hope. Now eleven, all of his best form - both as a hunter and previously under Rules - was on decent ground, so the wet week in the run up may be a concern. Cat Tiger, for the same yard, handles softer terrain and, while seemingly a little out of form this term, he's been racing in Class 2 and 3 handicap chases under Rules. His 2nd of 23 in last year's Aintree Hunter Chase (2m6f) gives him a squeak if he stays this far.
Bob And Co is now with Harry Derham, Nicholls' former assistant and, if he can jump round, he'd be a place player even at the age of 12. But I don't like backing horses who fail to complete.
Meanwhile, former Gold Cup runner Chris's Dream has won two point to points recently and comes here in form. He has obvious back class but he didn't get home in the Gold Cup and has never won over this far. His last win of any description under Rules was more than three years ago.
One of the first questions in this race is often, "What's Jamie Codd riding?" Answer: The Storyteller. A former Festival winner on soft ground, his stamina for this longer shift is presumed rather than established; but we do know he handles the other conditions and represents the most robust of connections: Gordon Elliott still trains him.
Rocky's Howya is a bit of a 'wise guy' horse getting some love on the preview circuit. He's young - seven - and been bashing up his rivals in point to points to a fair level of form. But I feel he should be a bigger price: he's one for the guessers - which, in fairness, most of us are in this race, if not the other 27 at the Festival!
A couple to mention in the long grass are Dorking Cock, Mighty Stowaway and I K Brunel. Dorking Cock has form with Vaucelet that gives that one only a small edge over this bigger priced runner. It's possible - perhaps likely - that Vaucelet was under-cooked that day; and DC had previously been thumped by Billaway. Still, he stays and handles all ground. Mighty Stowaway was third last year and represents the top UK point yard of Alan Hill; he might just be regressing aged twelve now but he'll surely run better than his early season form. From the same yard and still on the ascendant in this sphere is I K Brunel. He was a 130-rated chaser last season for Olly Murphy and comfortably beat Not That Fuisse in a hunter chase last time. He probably wants quick ground.
Maybe the ground has come right for Shantou Flyer, a horse that loves it soft and stays very well. He's 13 now, which is probably too old, and he's ridden by Paul Nicholls' daughter, Olive, who will obviously have grown up around horses and be very well schooled.
Challenge Cup Open Hunters' Chase Pace Map
Pinch of salt pace map because we don't have point form so these are Rules races only.
Challenge Cup Open Hunters' Chase Selection
I hope Vaucelet wins, for connections of Winged Leader who was so cruelly denied on the line last year; but he's a short enough price. Billaway is an obvious horse to run close and is around 8/1 - he was the horse to pip the Leader last year, and has run 221 in this the past three years. In the longer grass, horses like The Storyteller and perhaps Shantou Flyer may still have enough gusto about them to hit the board.
Suggestion: Back 8/1 Billaway each way with extra places and you'll probably get close to the winner's enclosure and hopefully the payout window.
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4.50 Mares' Chase (Grade 2, 2m 4 1/2f)
The Festival is pretty much over for me at this point, I have to concede. I have little interest in the Mares' Chase and know I'm not good enough to handicap the Martin Pipe. So let's keep it brief...
Allegorie de Vassy is a classy mare, winner of all four races - two hurdles and two chases - since moving from France to Willie in Ireland. Her two fencing scores were in Grade 2's, the same level as this, and she bolted up on both heavy and yielding so there are no grounds for concern, as it were. She has jumped right on occasion which, given this is a left-handed track, would mean she concedes a few lengths at her obstacles potentially: that, clearly, is undesirable for all that she may have a few lengths in hand of the rest.
The obvious danger is Impervious, herself a winner of three straight, including in G2 and G3 the last twice. She handles soft very well and had the beating of Grand Annual runner up (should have won) Dinoblue by three lengths two back. She's tough and seems to stay well.
Jeremys Flame is tough and consistent, graduating this season from handicaps to win a Listed race at Huntingdon last time. She's nine though, a veteran of 29 races, and her form is not as compelling as the other pair. She just about fits on the pick of her ratings, however.
Magic Daze has to prove she staze - sorry, stays; and the rest, most notably last year's winner Elimay, need to revert to the pick of their back class to feature. Zambella does look like getting her optimal soft turf and 2m4f trip
Mares' Chase Pace Map
A good bit of pace on, which will test jumping. Allegorie de Vassy, Magic Daze and Zambella are expected to be front rank.
Mares' Chase Selection
This looks between the top two in the betting but they're not that far clear on ratings. What they do have is more scope than most of their rivals, and I think Impervious looks slightly better suited to the task, particularly with no reservations about her jumping (please don't let me have jinxed her jumping).
Suggestion: Back 5/2 Impervious to win, or retire to the bar and watch.
To the lucky last. Erm. We're probably looking for a potential Grade 1 horse of the future. The alumni for this final race includes Sir Des Champs, Don Poli, Killultagh Vic, Galopin Des Champs and Banbridge. All those mentioned were Irish-trained, too. So that will be my starting point.
The top three in the betting are all defensively short at time of writing: around 5/1 each. They are Spanish Harlem, Imagine, and Cool Survivor.
Spanish Harlem cost €360,000 at the Arqana sale last summer, and he'll pocket... checks notes... £39,000 if he comes out on top here. More to the point, if he does win, he's probably smart enough to be contesting for bigger purses in the not too distant future. He's gone to Willie's and, though a hurdle winner in France already, has yet to add to that tally in three races since the stable switch. Of course that might very well be by design and, in any case, he's been running in small fields where his French victoire was against 16 rivals.
Gordon has the other two at the top, Imagine another to pepper the places without winning in recent efforts. He steps up from two miles to this two and a half, and was still entered in the three mile Albert Bartlett until 48 hour decs: clearly connections have few reservations about his stamina. He's been second in a Grade 3 and a Listed race since November and this will have been the plan.
Cool Survivor is also a Gordie runner and he, too, was in the Spuds before routing here. He finished fourth in a 2m6f G1 at the DRF last time and, prior to that, had won and been second (G3) over three miles. This step back in trip is a small niggle for a horse who, while doubtlessly having a splash of class, seems to stay very well.
At bigger prices, Firm Footings is in the same ownership and trainership (sic) as Imagine; he's had plenty of practice in defeat and steps up in grade for handicap debut with, like many others, the handibrake presumed off now. And Haxo is another Willie possible. Like all those previously mentioned, he's making his handicap bow after a couple of mark-securing efforts. His sixty length sixth in last year's Ballymore doesn't read as promisingly as some of the other form lines but he could still run well.
If there is to be a British winner, it's most likely to be from the barn of either Dan Skelton or Paul Nicholls. Skelton saddles two, Molly Olly's Wishes and West To The Bridge, but both are hooj prices and not remotely obvious winners even allowing for Dan being the UK Man in this setup. Dr Ditcheat has a credible contender in Irish Hill, a highly progressive handicapper that has won his last three, including most recently in a good Class 2 at Ascot. His problem is that we know pretty much what he is: he could improve three or four pounds but the winner here is probably going to find eight to ten pounds on its published rating.
Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle Pace Map
Plenty of pace on, as you'd expect for a big field handicap hurdle at Cheltenham; perhaps more so because it's a conditional jockeys' race.
Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle Selection
I obviously don't know. The market has been a fair guide to the Martin Pipe winner, with seven of the last nine sent off 12/1 or shorter (and one other at 14/1). I'd rather have a small interest in the top of the market than set fire to money lower down the lists; and I'll be a bit left and right by this point anyway - Friday is Brown Bear hostelry day!
I'm not trying to be too clever here, and I've had a quid each on 9/2 Spanish Harlem and 5/1 Imagine, win only. I told you I wasn't trying to be clever.
Suggestion: Back Spanish Harlem and/or Imagine, win only. Or bet something else. It's your life, after all 😉
*
And so, the end of a testing but glorious four days is in sight. Win or lose, it's a pleasure to fritter so many hours in the form book, and to share my cogitations with you: it's normally the case that I get many more points for the 'working out' than for scribbling down the correct answer. But, for weirdos like me (and maybe like you, too), the joy is almost all in the working out; in the puzzle. All the same, it obviously helps when we land on a fat one or two.
Be lucky.
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/galopindeschamps_langerdan_cheltenhamMartinPipe2021.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-03-16 10:01:552023-03-18 11:26:27Cheltenham Festival 2023: Day Four Preview, Tips
And so to the second half. Still 14 races to go at, including the Stayers' Hurdle, Ryanair Chase and, of course, Friday's Gold Cup. Lots of smaller supporting fish that might also taste sweet, starting with...
1.30 Turners Novices' Chase (Grade 1, 2m 4f)
A bigger field than last year's though, with just four then, that's not difficult!
We have a worthy favourite in Mighty Potter, who brings a four-race unbeaten streak and a career tally of seven wins from nine starts to the table. He's a Grade 1 winner on both his most recent spins, each over this sort of trip, and on form he is clear of his field. If you want a counterargument, it's this: in last year's Supreme he arrived similarly solid-looking off the back of a Grade 1 novice hurdle gold; but he was just not engaged on the day, pulling up a long way out. This will be only his second cross-water away day and, while a body of evidence of one race is hardly bombproof, it is a niggle.
If MP should falter, who may benefit? Most obvious would be Banbridge, winner of the Martin Pipe a year ago and second to El Fabiolo over an inadequate trip most recently. He was beaten ten lengths there, and 18 lengths the time before by Mighty Potter, so one might reasonably argue that the jolly will have to notably under-perform in order for that form to get spun around. It is also the case that Banbridge seems to prefer better ground, his two wins on soft coming in run of the mill novice hurdles where he probably outclassed his rivals.
A veteran at nine, in the context of a novice chase, is Appreciate It, winner of the 2021 Ballymore, second in the 2020 Champion Bumper, and only 10/3 in last year's Champion Hurdle, where he ran well for a long time before lack of race fitness told. There are no such fitness concerns this time after three seasonal outings, two of them wins, but he was comprehensively outpointed by Blue Lord last time and now steps up half a mile in trip. As a son of Jeremy it's not a foregone conclusion he'll stay, especially on rain softened ground; but he travels like he probably will (he did win a bumper over this trip very early in his career, and was a point to point winner before that, for whatever that form is worth now).
The first UK runner in the lists is Balco Coastal, a close up second to Gerri Colombe in the G1 Scilly Isles last time. He'd previously won a decent novices' handicap chase on soft ground lending credence to his claim to underfoot apathy, but his overall level seems a little below the Irish trio.
Stage Star has been a super horse for his myriad enthusiastic owners, and comes here having won seven of his 12 starts, including the G1 Challow Hurdle in 2021. He then pulled up in Grade 1's at both Cheltenham and Aintree, but has got back in the groove this term over a fence. To wit, he's notched three times from four starts - second on the other occasion, in Grade 2 company - and loves it soft. Conditions will be ideal but I'm not convinced he's up to this exacting level.
James du Berlais a hard horse to peg. He was second in Grade 1's at Auteuil and Punchestown over hurdles, and bolted up from the front in a beginners' chase on soft ground. But, in Mighty Potter's G1 last time, he was stuffed. It's possible he'll appreciate the softer ground but he'll certainly need to to reverse those positions.
Turners Novices' Chase Pace Map
This has pace, mainly from Stage Star, Appreciate It and Christopher Wood, but also Banbridge can go forward; so it'll be a true test. Mighty Potter is expected to be handy without getting involved in the battle for the lead.
Turners Novices' Chase Selection
There is every chance Mighty Potter just wins but he's an unexciting price after flopping so badly twelve months back. As such, it might be worth chancing the old man of the party, Appreciate It, in what could be a fair slog if it doesn't stop raining. I feel Banbridge might want better ground, and the rest of the Irish - and all of the British - don't look good enough.
Suggestion: Back Appreciate It at 4/1.
*
2.10 Pertemps Final (Grade 3 handicap, 3m)
Another absolute melee. Coming into last season, the Irish had won the previous six renewals, and held most of the aces for a seventh. But it didn't play out that way. In fact, not only was Hughie Morrison's Third Wind first past the post, but home team runners filled out the podium and five of the first six places. Hmm...
Some of that will be down to happenstance and some at the hand of the BHA's handicapping team, who have recalibrated the relationship between UK and Irish ratings. Whatever, it's an interesting additional consideration to lob into the pot.
My shortlist is Thanksforthehelp, The Bosses Oscar, Level Neverending and Walking On Air. This quintet is trained and owned by 'the right people', has the right unexposed profile, and looks sure to handle conditions.
The Bosses Oscar was second in this off a nine pound higher mark two years ago. He pulled up in it last year but that was after a season chasing where he mainly pulled up. Back to hurdling this term he's been on the premises throughout, and a fast run big field is no problem to him. He's trained by Gordon Elliott, triple Pertemps winner between 2018 and 2020.
He also saddles Level Neverending for the same owners, Bective Stud. This one is far less exposed, having made his handicap debut in the Warwick qualifier, staying on into a qualifying position and never nearer. He's a big price dark horse for all that he might not be good enough against this level of opposition.
Walking On Air runs for Nicky Henderson and Mrs Michael Tabor - Doreen, in fact. He's another lightly raced sort who opened his handicap account in the Exeter qualifier. All form so far has been on a sound surface, which is a concern unless the track dries out pronto.
David Pipe is a Pertemps winner - twice in fact, with the same wonderful stick, Buena Vista. His old man won the race further back and 'Dave' has a good chance with Thanksforthehelp, facile winner of the Chepstow qualifier last time. The notion that last day winners 'have shown their hand' doesn't really fit with the fact that last day winners have taken ten Pertemps Finals since 1997, from 108 qualifiers, for a +11 SP profit. They've also hit the frame at a 26% clip. The flip side is that the last to achieve a winning double was Presenting Percy in 2017.
Lots of others to consider, naturally.
Pertemps Final Pace Map
Potentially furiously run, it will certainly be strongly run. That might suit the strong travellers further back, who can hold a position through the early heat and play their hand late.
Pertemps Final Selection
This is another race where extra places give us extra chances. In that spirit, I want The Bosses Oscar, Level Neverendingand Thanksforthehelpon my ticket - and I don't mind splitting (unevenly) between three picks at all. If you only want to back one, take your choice from that trio or any of the other horses in the field!
Suggestion: Make sure you get all the extra places you can, and consider one or more of the three above.
*
2.50 Ryanair Chase (Grade 1, 2m 4 1/2f)
The much maligned Ryanair is one of my favourite races of the week. I get the argument that it dilutes the Champion Chase and Gold Cup, but the corollary is that it produces a high class heat all of its own for those not fast enough for the former and without sufficient stamina for the latter: it is truly an intermediate Championship race.
Take Allaho in the past two years, for example; he's blitzed his rivals from the front and, in so doing, has recorded a pair of the best performances at those respective Festivals. Prior to that, Frodon and Bryony provided one of the stories of the week in 2019, and the likes of Un De Sceaux, Vautour, Cue Card, Imperial Commander, and Albertas Run give the roll of honour a robust look. So, no, not for me that the Ryanair is a misstep: it's a cracking race and, generally, a very good betting race.
Perhaps not this season, however, on the latter point at least. Because, in the absence of Allaho, we have Shishkin. The winner of a Supreme and an Arkle pulled up in last year's Champion Chase and flunked behind Edwardstone in this season's Tingle Creek: missing, presumed gone at it. Until, that is, a wind op and a step up in trip conspired to elicit a performance as good as he's ever produced in the Ascot Chase over this trip.
That level of form, and plenty of other from prior to last season's Fez flop, puts him a mile - or maybe half a stone in ratings terms - clear of his field here. But before going all in, consider that he was similarly well-fancied off a similarly rated prep a year ago. That big effort left its mark, albeit that the manner of the result was visually a lot more punishing, Shishkin going toe to toe with Energumene in a heavyweight scrap for our time.
So who, if anyone, can lower Shishkin's black and yellow checkerboard colours? With the news that Allaho would miss the party, Willie was never going to be troubled in shuffling his pack to find a sub. He's come up with Blue Lord, who looked world-beating at Christmas before failing to live with barn mate Gentleman De Mee at the Dublin Racing Festival last month. Prior to that, Blue Lord had done well to hold off former King George winner Tornado Flyer on his seasonal bow over the Ryanair trip. He's high class, but I'm just not sure what his trip is - two and a quarter miles, perhaps?
Janidil got closest to Allaho last year, having been held up away from the tearaways on the front. That turned out to be a good tactic as, although he got nowhere near 'the speed of the speed' Allaho, he plugged on past; but it's reasonable to argue he may not even have been second had Conflated not fallen two out. Janidil had two subsequent spring spins, both non-completions, and has had just one go this season. That was in the Grade 2 Red Mills Chase at Gowran Park, where he held off Haut En Couleurs in a small but fairly select field.
This distance may be the making of Fury Road, who has struggled to see out three miles at the top table on a number of occasions. He won a Grade 2 over 2m4f in early November last year before taking bronze in a brace of Leopardstown three mile G1's; further back, he was just outstayed by Monkfish in the 2020 Albert Bartlett.
What to make of Envoi Allen? Winner of the 2019 Champion Bumper and the 2020 Ballymore, he's actually won a couple of Grade 1's since including as recently as this season. He's six from eight at around this distance, hurdles and fences, and, if you can overlook a very poor showing in the King George, he's a place player.
I don't give the rest much of a chance.
Ryanair Chase Pace Map
Steady away here, most likely; Chacun Poir Soi, fabulous old boy, may be near the front but won't be tearing off. Should be a good even tempo.
Ryanair Chase Selection
This is Shishkin's race to lose. He looked very, very good in the Ascot Chase last time and a run with seven pounds of that is probably good enough. I don't really like the 'without' market so that's it - Shishkin.
Suggestion: Back 8/11 Shishkin to generate some eights for any spare elevens you have* - or just watch a champ in action.
*this does not constitute robust financial advice. Caveat emptor.
*
3.30 Stayers' Hurdle (Grade 1, 3m)
The second highlight of day three is the Stayers' Hurdle, run over three miles. Bizarrely, it is not always the test of stamina the name suggests: in the last two seasons, Danny Mullins has ridden his rivals into a trance aboard Flooring Porter with, last season, his stop-start tempo on the front end before gearing up in the run to two out. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me thrice?
Although FP's form figures look a little less appealing this season, he's been running to a similar level of form and he seems to handle most ground. Trainer Gavin Cromwell will have again peaked him for this gig, but very few horses manage to win three Stayers' Hurdles (or indeed three of any Festival Championship race). That said, there isn't a bundle of obvious pace alternates in the field.
We haven't seen a lot of the seven-year-old Charles Byrnes-trained Blazing Khal, but what we have seen has typically been other horses following him home. Indeed, he's had just four races since 2020, three of them the following year and all of them victories. That two were achieved around Cheltenham is a boon to his prospects, as is his proven speed for shorter trips as well as three-mile winning form. This will be a first step up to Grade 1 company but, after three successive G2 scores, he's ready. Byrnes tends to know what he has and so the layoff - sole spin since 2021 was last month - isn't unduly concerning, though there is scope for the dreaded 'bounce' with that profile. There is a small niggle about his rider, the trainer's son, who will be unable to claim his allowance here.
Ex-French-trained Teahupoo was in the care of Gabriel Leenders prior to his rehoming at Gordon Elliott's Cullentra House yard, and his former conditioner has Gold Tweet in this year's line up. Let's deal with Teahupoo first. He's a typically early blooming French-bred who has won seven of his nine Irish starts, including this season's Hatton's Grace Hurdle, Grade 1. He was soundly beaten last term in both the Champion Hurdle and the Punchestown equivalent, but has resumed winning ways over further either side of the new year. Most of his good form is on soft or heavy ground so he won't mind any rain, and if it turns into a slog that ought to suit him.
Gold Tweet is another for whom wet ground holds no terrors: it was soft when he won the Cleeve, and very soft when he scored at Fontainebleu in November. But defeating Dashel Drasher and Paisley Park, both fantastic sticks but surely on the decline now, probably leaves him with plenty to find in this deeper field. Gold Tweet has never won above G3 in France (and that in a chase race).
Another I'm struggling to quantify is Home By The Lee. Joseph O'Brien trains this eight-year-old whose timber-topping form prior to this season was 218U113P100P226R; he's managed to put back-to-back wins together, in a Grade 2 and then a three mile Grade 1, so what gives? A charitable perspective of his Stayers' run last year would show that he stayed on having been outpaced mid-race; his case hangs on it being a thorough stamina test, which is by no means a given. In any event, he's short enough in a race of if's and but's.
Willie sends Klassical Dream and he might just be the over-priced one. Sure, he's quirky, and he probably needs to be delivered on the line because he travels a lot better than he finds when let down; but he's a six-time (SIX!) Grade 1 winner including three of his last four Grade 1's - so no back number - and comes here off the back of a narrow defeat by Teahupoo over an inadequate two and a half mile trip.
Of the rest, Ashdale Bob might be involved in making the pace - he's led or been prominent in his last three, and clung tough for 3rd of 23 in last year's Coral Cup - and is admirably consistent. His form in the last three seasons reads 11F912U373232342: almost always thereabouts when completing. I really hope he puts it up to Flooring Porter (though, of course, there will be others who wish the opposite!).
It's tough to make much of case for the stars of yesteryear like Paisley Park and Dashel Drasher.
Stayers' Hurdle Pace Map
Surely Flooring Porter doesn't get an easy lead for a third year running? Surely?! Maybe he does, though both Ashdale Bob and Dashel Drasher can go from the front, too. The French runner, Henri Le Farceur, led last time but is more typically waited with.
Stayers' Hurdle Selection
Very difficult indeed. I'm taking a chance on Klassical Dream, win only, in the hope that they go fast and he can cruise into contention. He's as likely to flop as to win so not an each way play, but hoping he'll give a run for the money.
Suggestion: Back Klassical Dream win only at 10/1.
*
4.10 Festival Plate (Grade 3 handicap, 2m 4 1/2f)
Another borderline impossible handicap, this time a chase, and the first of two such races on the day. This is the least trends'y race of the week, with the Irish faring well enough, so too the Brits; young horses and old, exposed and unexposed, all getting on the roll of honour. It's a race that Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins have never won, Gordon Elliott has only won once and Nicky Henderson hasn't won since 2006! It's also a race where four of the last five winners were priced 5/1 or shorter, which is disappointing unless you fancy So Scottish.
That horse, in the care of Emmet Mullins, Plate winning trainer two years ago, looks an obvious contender for all that he's likely to face deeper ground and has been off longer than most winners; though Ballynagour in 2014 returned after the exact same 117 day layoff to win.
Il Ridoto was a soft ground winner over course and distance last time and, up eight pounds, still looks viable for Nicholls. He might again bid to make all. And a really interesting one if he stays is Frero Banbou. Trained by Venetia Williams, three-time Plate winner, this lad was desperately outpaced in last year's Grand Annual over two miles before making up ground on a fading field into eventual third. He's in the right hands and should be able to lie up with them more easily over this longer range. Venetia also runs Gemirande, a trip specialist who has progressed by more than a stone this season and, not out of the first two in his last six starts, may still be improving.
Millions of others with chances.
Festival Plate Pace Map
There's not a massive amount of early go, though Gemirande and Coole Cody will be there. So, too, perhaps Shakem Up'Arry and Embittered. Should be a fair chance for most.
Festival Plate Selection
The simple answer is So Scottish, and he might be a win saver. But, with as many bonus places as I can get, I'll be splitting my stake between the Brits Il Ridoto, Frero Banbou and Gemirande, and hoping for the best.
Suggestion: Take a couple of your choosing, and save on So Scottish.
*
4.50 Dawn Run Mares' Novices' Hurdle (Grade 2, 2m 1f)
We all have a least favourite Festival race, and this one is mine. I'm generally accepting of the new races but definitely struggle with the mares' novices' hurdle. Anyway, that's my problem, and it will have a winner to find, so let's get on to that.
With seven renewals so far, Willie won the first five - sigh/wow! - before Henry de B took over with a 1-2 in 2021, where there was an Irish 1-2-3-4, none of them Willie. Then, last year, up rocked Love Envoi, trained by a Brit, Harry Fry, with another Brit in second, Willie third.
And it's a UK mare, Luccia, who is short at the top of the betting lists this time around. She's been an easy winner of all four starts to date, two bumpers and two novices, but hasn't jumped on softer than good ground yet. She could well be the winner; the problem is that this is one of those races where there are a number of unexposed types whose form lines are untested against each other.
Henry de Bromhead has options in a race named after his late son - poor family 🙁 - and it will be unbearably poignant if one of his can win. Chief among them might be Magical Zoe, herself unbeaten in three. She's won on soft in Grade 3 company and, while not as visually impressive as Luccia, she's expected to appreciate any stiffer test of stamina as a result of a fast pace. She was 18/1 that last day and beat the first two in the market into second and third: it didn't look fluky.
A really interesting contender, not to be confused with the de Bromhead runner, is Princess Zoe. You might know her from such as her Group 1 Prix du Cadran score or multiple Galway triumphs. She scraped home in a dead heat on hurdling debut over 2m4f, and it might be that a truly run two miles or so with a bit of cut is optimal. Her jumping lacked a little polish on that timber-topping bow, as it was entitled to do, and, if well schooled since, she's unquestionably high class.
Four of Willie's five Dawn Run winners were five-year-olds, which might just be coincidence; but more Dawn Runners tend to be six or older. Mullins' 5yo entry is Lot Of Joy, who has a Lot To Do on the ratings; but she looks a typical improver, having run up in her first two spins in huge fields before putting a dozen lengths between herself and the nearest of 14 rivals last time. She was 1/7 that day so did nothing unexpected, but that brings her to Cheltenham on an improvement arc and less exposed than many others.
You Wear It Well was second to Hermes Allen in the Grade 1 Challow, a race working out very well. I don't know how Hermes has done at time of writing, but a big performance from him in the Ballymore would clearly be a hint towards this mare's chance. She's fine on all ground and easily won a Grade 2 last time. Both the Challow and that G2 were over further, however, so the drop back in trip is not certain to suit.
Two more to mention, from a cast of 21, are Poetic Music and Halka Du Tabert. Poetic Music was a very good bumper filly, running sixth in Facile Vega's Champion Bumper as a four-year-old. She's taken well to hurdling, winning twice, though was no match for Luccia when they met three back. She wants a battle and she wants a strong pace, and she'll get both of those here: outside squeak.
Halka Du Tabert was well touted and showed the rumours to be on point when slamming Eabha Grace, a Grade 3 winner at the weekend, in a big field maiden. She was outpaced in a small field G3 last time, and this is much more her setup: she could be a contender.
Mares' Novices' Hurdle Pace Map
Hard to know how this will go with so many inexperienced mares. On what we've seen, Fox Girl and Halka du Tabert will be forwardly placed from the outset, while Luccia is more likely to track those trailblazers.
Mares' Novices' Hurdle Selection
Lots who will turn out better than they've had a chance to show so far, and Luccia - whilst an obvious win chance - is a measly price. Against her, I'll chance a couple each way: Magical Zoe and Halka Du Tabert. Both are likely to relish a strong pace and possess the battling qualities required for a scrum amongst 20+ inexperienced mares.
Suggestion: Back either or both of Magical Zoe and Halka du Tabert, each way a pleasure.
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5.30 Kim Muir Challenge Cup Chase (Class 2 Handicap, 3m2f)
The second handicap chase of the day, this one over three and a quarter miles and the exclusive domain of amateur riders. However, a quick squint at the winning jocks in recent years demonstrates the level of professionalism in the amateur ranks: just two of the last nine were claiming, and both have now gone professional. Jamie Codd has won the Kim Muir four times since 2009.
In betting terms, there were two 40/1 winners in the past eight years, both British-trained, and the other six were all single figure returns, four of them trained in Ireland.
Favourite this year is Stumptown, on the hat-trick and trained by Gavin Cromwell. He popped up at Sandown last time, eking out seven lengths over the second that day and earning enough of a ratings bump to book his Kim Muir ticket. Although he won a maiden hurdle on soft, his recent best has been achieved on a sounder surface; that doesn't mean he won't handle wetter as well as drier, just that he might not - and he's awful short if you're not sure.
Mr Incredible bids, I think, to be Willie Mullins' first handicap chase winner at the Festival. I believe he's 0 from 37 though he's had some placed. That's clearly not fuelling optimism and the horse - claimed by his rider to be a nutjob - has form figures that lurch from a Scrabble rack to a clutch of podium positions. Which Mr Incredible will show up today?
A horse we were interested in buying a couple of years back is Farinet, and he's been a fine servant for connections. He's trained by the first lady of Cheltenham Festival handicap chases, Venetia Williams, and wasn't beaten too far over course and distance on New Year's Day.
Beauport arrives here rather than the Ultima, and that may be the proverbial tip in itself. Trainer by the Twister, Nigel Twiston-Davies, he loves soft ground and a trip.
At the other end of the handicap, Ben Pauling - winning trainer of the Grand Annual last year - saddles a couple, the more interesting of which is probably Anightinlambourn. He's won three of his last four and was second on the other occasion; two of those runs were here over this sort of trip, but on quicker ground. If it dries out he becomes very interesting, I think.
And I've almost certainly not mentioned the winner!
Kim Muir Pace Map
It's Venetia to the fore and aft, everyone else in between. Farinet likely goes to the front while Chambard will be played late. Lots of other occasional pace pressers means this will be a stern examination of jumping over an exacting distance.
Kim Muir Selection
Tricky. Very tricky. I'm going to try Beauport and Anightinlambourn (good to soft or quicker only) against the field.
Suggestion: Back a couple against the field, with lots of extra places. Maybe the same two as me, and maybe not!
*
It's a very tough day is Thursday at the Festival, so well done if you come out in front. If you don't, there's always Gold Cup day...
Good luck!
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Shishkin_Ascot_2023.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-03-14 17:57:012023-03-14 17:57:02Cheltenham Festival 2023: Day 3 Preview, Trends, Tips
Cheltenham Festival 2023: Day Two Preview, Trends, Tips
Day two, Wednesday, and a similar combination of novice races, handicaps and a Championship race, this time the Queen Mother Champion Chase. As ever, it's a one-thirty start for the...
1.30 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m5f)
They say the Ballymore/Neptune/Baring Bingham is more of a speed test than the Supreme and, if very recent history is anything to go by "they" are right. The winners' finishing speeds in the Supreme in the past two years - the only two for which CourseTrack sectionals are available on the RTV website - were 100% each time, with the runners up coming home in around 94% each time. Meanwhile, in the Ballymore, the winners' closing sectionals were 102.2% and 106% while the runners up recorded 101.4% and 103.8%. What does it all mean? Well, simply that we might be looking for a horse able to travel and quicken rather than one who gallops relentlessly.
To the form, and the only place to start is with the talking horse's talking horse, Impaire Et Passe. Reputedly the latest Pegasus on the Willie Mullins production line, he's unbeaten in a Nancy bumper before transferring to Closutton (for €155,000) and winning a brace of novice hurdles, the second of which was the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer. That race has been a stepping stone in the past for the same trainer's Mikael d'Haguenet, Vautour, Douvan and Min, amongst others. The first of those named won the Ballymore next time, while the other three all went Supreme (two of them winning, Min running second to Altior). So it is arguably the trusted prep for Mullins' top novice hurdlers, although the Grade 1 at the DRF is a more obvious candidate in that regard.
A winner of his maiden hurdle by 18 lengths, in a field of 24, that form looks very ordinary: none of the runners behind that day have won since, and they've collectively amassed 42 starts! Still, that's hardly Impaire Et Passe's fault as he fulfilled his end of the bargain by going so far clear. In that Moscow Flyer, run this year on heavy ground, he jumped well in the main though was a little clumsy at the last. The key thing with his chance, given that on form he has a bit to find, is the stable confidence. Mullins has a raft of talented novice hurdlers and yet this is the one seemingly most talked up: he must be good. But he is inexperienced and, as I say, does not yet have the best form.
Mullins also saddles Gaelic Warrior, second in last year's Fred Boodles and winner of all three of his starts this term, including in a valuable handicap hurdle, shouldering top weight, at the DRF. That form has already had some lustre added to it and, where IEP is a tad shy on experience, GW brings much more as a second season novice.
Splitting the Willie pair in the betting is the Paul Nicholls-trained Hermes Allen. Triumphant in all three of his races so far, he must have surprised a few at Ditcheat because he started out in a Stratford maiden hurdle before claiming the Grade 2 Hyde Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham and the Grade 1 Challow at Newbury. That Challow form has worked out superbly well, with the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and two of the pulled up also-rans winning since; not only winning, but three of them scoring in Pattern company. Hermes Allen is already a heck of a hurdler, but he could be a monster over fences next season.
The third string to Mullins' extremely stringy bow is Champ Kiely, winner of the Grade 1 Lawlor's Of Naas Novices' Hurdle last time. There he beat Irish Point, who won a Grade 3 at Naas on Sunday; the overall level of that form looks below others in the field, however. That said, the Champ handles any ground and has won four of his five career starts to date.
Barry Connell, boutique trainer of his own horses, has not just Marine Nationale in the Supreme but also Good Land in this. He's winner of his three completed starts this term, having unseated at the first in his hurdling debut. He was last seen winning the Grade 1 Nathaniel Lacy over 2m6f at the DRF, and that is normally top form as illustrated in this article by Jon Shenton. [For info, the best novice hurdle run annually in Britain or Ireland tends to be the one at DRF won this year by Il Etait Temps].
Ho My Lord is a further Willie wunner, and is unbeaten in completed starts, a French bumper and an Irish maiden hurdle either side of a tumble at Leopardstown at Christmas. He completely unexposed, and as such wouldn't be a total shock winner; but his known level of form is stones below that in the book for some of his rivals.
I liked American Mike for the Supreme after his Champion Bumper second last year, but he seems to have completely lost his way since. It's not unheard of for horses to rediscover their best form at the Festival, but it is usually slightly more planned by connections - who were aiming at a handicap until running out of time to get the requisite fourth run under their belts. Mike looks somewhat homeless in terms of race fit this year; hoping he'll be back next season over a fence.
Ballymore Pace Map
Plenty of early dash, with Hermes Allen and American Mike, along with probably one or more of the Mullins lesser lights. Might be a little quicker than normal in the early stages.
Ballymore Novices' Hurdle Selection
I have come round to the hype surrounding Impaire Et Passe, a horse who will have plenty of peers against which to compare his level at home. His stablemate Gaelic Warriorhas the best public level of ability but the vibes are all for IeP. Still, the Warrior will likely be hard to keep out of the three and represents a fairly solid each way tickle.
Suggestion: Probably a race to bet Impaire Et Passe, even at relatively skinny odds. 5/1 Gaelic Warrior is a solid-looking each way alternative.
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2.10 Brown Advisory Novices' Chase (Grade 1, 3m)
Widely recalled as the RSA Chase, this is in fact the Broadway Novices' Chase, currently sponsored by Brown Advisory, an independent investment management firm apparently. No matter: it always has been and presumably always will be a three mile novice chase and an early opportunity for chasers to advertise future Gold Cup credentials: in that context, it's typically a very good race. The last couple of winners, L'Homme Presse and Monkfish, have absented for the following year's Gold Cup; but going back a decade, Bobs Worth and Lord Windermere were back to back Broadway/Gold Cup doublers.
This year, the most fancied runner is Gerri Colombe, and not without good cause. He's already a dual Grade 1 winner, in the Faugheen at Limerick at Christmas and in the Scilly Isles at Sandown last month; and, though both of those races were over half a mile shorter than he'll face here, he's been going on to assert at the finish each time. Still, he's not guaranteed to stay in a top class test such as this. One asset that will help is his jumping, which was outstanding at Sandown: long or short, he was always clever and didn't tickle a twig at any of the 17 fences. Gerri is a very worthy favourite.
One thing the jolly has not yet done is race around Cheltenham; the same cannot be said of The Real Whacker. Patrick Neville's seven-year-old is unbeaten in two chases at the track, most recently when beating Monmiral three lengths in the Grade 2 Dipper. He, too, has been very good at his obstacles to date and may have more to give: perhaps he'll need to as a line through Monmiral gives him a bit to find with GC - though it's fair to say the collateral horse wouldn't be a reliable yardstick even if reliable yardsticks were a reliable yardstick, if you see what I mean. In any case, his defeat of Thunder Rock (reopposes) was much more in line with Gerri C's margin over the same horse, so if you're into collateral you can choose your poison.
Philip Hobbs has recently announced a joint licence plan whereby long-time assistant Johnson White will share the honour; but before that Thyme Hill will test his mettle for the current sole licensee here. A couple of years the senior of Gerri and the Whacker, Thyme Hill has been a top class staying hurdler, running second in last year's Stayers' Hurdle as well as winning the G1 Liverpool Hurdle, the G1 Challow as a novice, and running third in the 2019 Champion Bumper here. He was also fourth in the Albert Bartlett of 2020, giving him Festival form of 342 in Grade 1's.
Although it feels like this feller has been around forever he only spent three seasons hurdling; and the manner of his Feltham/Kauto Star win at Kempton on Boxing Day - by 15 lengths from McFabulous - was striking. The form however has plenty of question marks with the second pulling up as odds on favourite next time; and the other two runners at Kempton failing to complete. Thyme Hill came from off a sizzling pace that day to barrel away from a couple of tired rivals, an approach that perhaps again gives him a chance to pick up pieces here.
Remember Sir Gerhard? Sporting the union flag colours of Cheveley Park but raced in Ireland for better prize money (sigh), he cost four hundred grand at the end of the 2019. That looked a fairly chunky price tag but he's since recouped more than half of it, which is more than most racehorses achieve! A win here would add another hundred bags to the total and offer the prospect of him getting his nose in front financially (obviously, ignoring training and transport costs - who bothers with those?!).
More materially, what of his form chance? Well, he infamously 'stole' the 2021 Champion Bumper from Kilcruit (pocket talk) and went on to win last year's Ballymore Novices' Hurdle at the Festival. This season he's been sighted just once, when bagging a beginners' chase by 38 lengths from the occasionally-very-good-but-not-on-this-particular-occasion Largy Debut. That was in spite of a horlicks of an error, which would be a concern here in terms of chasing experience. Yes, he won a point to point back yon but this wouldn't be the gig to come in underdone. Still, he's plenty of class and ability, so is not easily discounted.
The aforementioned Thunder Rock has been beaten by both Gerri Colombe and The Real Whacker so what chance has he here? Both of those defeats were at around two and a half miles, and the run behind the Whacker was at Cheltenham (2m5f, soft) where the closing comment was, "stayed on final 110 yards". That doesn't really tell the full story: Thunder Rock was last of five three furlongs out and closed all the way to the line. Meanwhile, The Real Whacker - who'd led them a merry dance from flag fall - was getting to the end of his soap-on-a-rope. This extra three furlongs is what brings Olly Murphy's charge into the picture, and he's a price against the top of the market.
The mare Galia Des Liteaux seems to be very well regarded by the Skelton yard, and has looked very good a couple of times this term. Her best run was her most recent, when surging 13 lengths clear of her field in a Grade 2 three mile novice chase at Warwick. The going was heavy that day, as it was when she won a Listed novice chase at Bangor earlier in the season, and that appears to be the key to her: the wetter the better. She was pulled up in the Kauto Star/Feltham when failing to get into a rhythm; that can happen to a horse without necessarily being the death knell to its Festival chance - see for example Bobs Worth.
By contrast, Adamantly Chosen has plenty of good ground form. In his latest pair of races, he's been second in two and a half mile Grade 1's to Mighty Potter and Gerri Colombe - not beaten comprehensively either time, and staying on both times - which puts him in the picture here. He's been supplemented for this, another indication that his chance is credible.
RSA Chase Pace Map
Likely just an even gallop here, with Harry Skelton the prime contender to take them along on Galia Des Liteaux. The Real Whacker has gone forward the last twice, however, so there's a chance of some early contention.
RSA Chase Selection
A race where Gerri Colombe is an obvious and legitimate favourite but a bit on the skinny side pricewise. Of his rivals, I quite like the claims of Sir Gerhard, Galia Des Liteaux (soft ground only), Thunder Rock and Adamantly Chosen(good to soft or quicker), and I think it's an each way sort of a race - though we may end up playing for the place part behind Gerri.
Suggestion: Consider 15/2 Galia Des Liteaux (soft or heavy) or 18/1 Adamantly Chosen good to soft or quicker) each way or without the favourite.
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2.50 Coral Cup (Handicap, Grade 3, 2m5f)
A big field handicap hurdle, inscrutable in the extreme to these peepers. A bit of 'black box' shortlisting leaves me with HMS Seahorse, Beacon Edge, Captain Conby, and Bold Endeavour.
HMS Seahorse runs for Paul Nolan, the trainer of Mrs Milner, last year's Pertemps Final winner. He seemed to improve a good bit when needing a few extra pounds to get in here stepping up in trip last time; and he won in the style of a horse with a good bit more up his sleeve.
The Noel Meade-trained Beacon Edge was third Stayers' Hurdle favourite Blazing Khal in the G2 Boyne Hurdle last time, and was a G2 winner at this trip a couple of years ago. He's handily weighted for this handily-cap debut.
Eddie Sheehy is the sort of 'no name' trainer whose runner slips a tad under the radar in races like these; and who can get the job done a la Peter Fahey and Paul Hennessey two years ago. Captain Conby is tough and consistent, and was good enough to still be in the mix in the G1 Mersey Novices' Hurdle when coming down at the second last a year ago. He seems to handle any ground, too.
Best of the home team might be the Nicky Henderson-trained Bold Endeavour, who reverts to hurdles after running second (of three) in the G2 Reynoldstown last time. He looks on a very fair mark so, although the last Festival handicap hurdle winner to have been chasing on its most recent start was Andytown in 2009, that horse was trained by Hendo - and returned a similarly fat price to this one's likely SP. The King of Seven Barrows has attempted the feat eleven times since, faring no better than 7th (in 2021, Mill Green, 40/1) - that obviously tempers enthusiasm.
Coral Cup Pace Map
Probably not crazy fast early despite the huge field, with Bold Endeavour a possible designated driver. Could be a bit of elbows out action turning into the straight with doubtless a dozen and more still holding chances.
Coral Cup Selection
Skybet are *eight* places on this race and that feels the way to go, as long as their win price is competitive with best available. I'll be perming 12/1 Captain Conby, 10/1 HMS Seahorse and 12/1 Beacon Edge - another three very possible place prospects and three darts at hitting the win jackpot.
Coral Cup Suggestion: Split your stake three or four ways - and bet each way with as many extra places as you can find.
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3.30 Queen Mother Champion Chase (Grade 1, 2m)
The Champion Chase is the championship speed test for high class steeplechasers. Remarkably, when Energumene claimed the spoils a year ago, it was Willie Mullins' first Champion Chase success at the 15 time of asking. The other 14 included Un De Sceaux (2nd at 4/6), Douvan (7th at 2/9), and Chacun Pour Soi (3rd at 8/13), so it will have been good for him to get that monkey off his back. This year, Mullins saddles only one: Energumene, the reigning champ.
Energumene comes here off a less than convincing prep in the G1 Clarence House in late January (run here rather than its usual Ascot home). There, he was still in the mix before a shocker at the last curtailed his claim. Prior to odds on disappointment there he'd won ten from eleven, the only blemish being a narrow defeat in 'that' race with Shishkin at Ascot. It is reasonable to assume he was not quite at concert pitch in January and further reasonable to say that he will be this time, in which case he may be the one they all have to beat.
Gentleman De Mee - who misses the race with an infection - previously had an Aintree G1 verdict over Edwardstone, while that one won convincingly in last season's Arkle at Cheltenham. And Edwardstone was imperious in the Tingle Creek earlier in the season, though he himself has since been turned over by Editeur Du Gite.
The management summary is that any of a number of these could conceivably win the Champion Chase, a race that is likely to be further confuddled by a pace profile featuring a broad cast of prospective forward-goers. All of this makes for a fascinating and thrilling spectacle but a nightmare of a punting puzzle.
Further down the lists are very-good-on-their-day types like two mile specialist Funambule de Sivola (chase form of 1121121126451 at or around two miles), whose season took a marked turn for the better with a bold front-running display in the Game Spirit; Greaneteen, who was closest to Edwardstone at Sandown but a bit floppy behind Funambule at Newbury; and Nube Negra who all but won the 2021 Champion Chase but has been in and out since.
And then there's Captain Guinness, representing three-time Champion Chase-winning trainer, Henry de Bromhead, who of course suffered the ultimate distress not long ago: what a phenomenal story it would be if the Captain could get home in front. Heart-warming, but unlikely.
Champion Chase Pace Map
Two or three who can go forward but, with none of them needing to do so, it's not clear how this might play out. Editeur Du Gite and Energumene will fancy their win chances to may rein back slightly off Funambule de Sivola, whose prospects are more wild card. Still, I'd expect it to be at least truly run.
Champion Chase Selection
This might just be a straight shoot out between Edwardstone and Energumene, and it might not. As unhelpful as that sounds, I'm not really sure where to go with it. If Energumene tracks the pace rather than contests it, he gets first run on Edwardstone who will be played later. In that scenario, he might win; or he might set it up for the last challenger, probably Edwardstone.
Editeur Du Gite's chance may be compromised by a duel with Funambule de Sivola, another fast horse early, and another classy contender (though not quite in the Eddie/Energ quality category).
Incredibly, perhaps, this is a no bet race for me. It ought to be a cracking watch all the same.
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4.10 Glenfarclas Chase (Cross Country, Class 2, 3m6f)
Another of the 'not for the purists' races, arguably; but I have to concede to very much enjoying the different spectacle of a big field of often familiar names jogging around quirky ever decreasing spiral before shaking loose onto the main course for the sprint to the line. In the olden days, this used to be the almost exclusive province of Enda Bolger but, since 2017, there's been a new sheriff in town. Gordon Elliott (and, in 2021, his proxy, Denise Foster) has won five of the last six renewals of the Glenfarclas Chase and saddled the second and third in the year he didn't win during that spell.
This season, he will be responsible for the first two in the betting, Delta Work and Galvin. Now ten, Delta Work was fifth in the 2020 Gold Cup and was the panto villain a year ago when beating everybody's darling, Tiger Roll, by less than a length. He followed that up with third in the Grand National and he's a worthy and obvious favourite. If there is a vulnerability in his profile it might be that he much prefers wet ground: it was heavy when he bested the Tiger but looks unlikely to be that deep this time.
His stablemate Galvin by contrast prefers top of the ground, though he was good enough to claim silver in the 2020 novices' handicap chase at the Festival on soft. A year later, having retained his novice status, he won the NH Chase; and, last year, he was fourth in the Gold Cup. That's very classy form against this field.
And there is another top tier entry this season in the form of Franco De Port, trained by Willie Mullins. He's run respectably in Grade 1 three mile chases the last twice, a level good enough to mix it with Elliott's duo, but he's never raced in public over cross country fences; that's a knock. He looks sure to stay, however, on the basis of his fine third in the Grand Steeplechase last May.
To be honest, I'm struggling to make a case for anything else. Back On The Lash won the cross country handicap in January here but he's 20-odd pounds wrong with Delta Work, and has fluffed his Festival lines in this exam last season (may have hated the ground, in fairness) - any chance he might have is ground dependant. Snow Leopardess would be a very popular winner, and she did have a sighter over the track in January and arrives on the back of a very good run in the Grand National Trial handicap chase last month. She was fourth in Galvin's National Hunt Chase of 2021, handles genuine soft ground and could be a bit of each way value if/when the bookies offer five places.
Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase Pace Map
This will be run at its usual sedate pace for the first three miles or so, with Lieutenant Rocco and Back On The Lash the most plausible for name checks throughout. The gorgeous white mare Snow Leopardess will be easy to spot and may not be far from the front, while Galvin, Delta Work, and especially Franco De Port, will probably be further back during the first half of the race.
Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase Selection
It looks a straight shootout between the Elliott pair Delta Work and Galvin. On good ground, it's the reigning champion's to lose; soft or heavy would tilt the scales in favour of Galvin; while good to soft would render it pretty much a coin toss between the pair. I don't see anything else representing much value, nor am I mad about punting the short ones at the top at their current prices. I would be tempted by Galvin at bigger than 9/4 on soft ground though that may be asking too much from the layers. If you want an each way with extra places, that might be Snow Leopardess, who looks very likely to improve on her first gallop round this unique circuit.
Suggestion: Back Galvin at 5/2+ if the ground is soft; consider 25/1 Snow Leopardess each way with bonus places, or in any 'without the front two' markets.
4.50 Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Handicap Chase (Grade 3, 2m)
Impossible. For me, at least. I've backed Coeur Sublime after his 'not quite off for the lot' fourth in a Grade 1 two back and his 'still not quite off' second in a Grade 3 last time out. It's possible he has too much weight or is not good enough - of course it, perfectly possible - but I think this has been the plan all season. He's been second in a Triumph Hurdle and was only 12/1 for a Champion Hurdle so he's classy all right.
Aside from Coeur, the market is a little over-enamoured with the Irish challenge given that the raiders have won just twice since 2014, though they did have the 1-2-3 in 2020 and the second horse home in the two runnings since. Andy Dufresne was one of those silver medallists, last year, and he has been laid out for this since. He'll need to have been because his recent track efforts have been lamentable. On his full body of work, however, he has a clear chance even off top weight (and the same mark as twelve months ago).
I feel as though Joe Tizzard may go close in a handicap this week and he has Elixir De Nutz in this one. Easy winner of a Class 2 handicap a couple of spins back, he was no match for Champion Chase-bound Funambule de Sivola last time, though of course he'd got a qualifying mark by then. Elixir runs in the same Terry Warner colours as former winner (and third placed on another occasion) Oiseau De Nuit, who was trained by Joe's dad, Colin. He's a Grade 2 winner at the track over hurdles, but wouldn't want too much rain.
Grand Annual Pace Map
Fast and furious always. Last year's winner, Global Citizen, and my fancy, Elixir De Nutz, need to be careful not to compromise each other's chance; especially with fancied runners like Final Orders and Dinoblue snapping at their hooves. Expect it to be frenetic.
Grand Annual Selection
I have backed Coeur Sublimeand think he can run a nice race; and if it's not too wet - it might be - I'll have a small each way bet on Elixir De Nutzwith as many places as I can find.
Suggestion: Your guess is better than mine. I'm guessing 11/1 Coeur Sublime and 16/1 Elixir de Nuit, and hoping to be lucky rather than good.
Some shrewd judges go to the bar when this is on; even shrewder judges make a lot of paddock notes for future reference. It's not really a betting race, with whispers and hearsay trading far more strongly than form lines - on the basis that most of the horses have very few of those, and even the ones they do possess were earned in vastly different circumstances.
To offer a hint into the opaqueness of the race, how many do you think Willie Mullins has entered this year? Five? Six? Nope. Ten. TEN!!
One who has shown top class bumper form is A Dream To Share and that's why he's favourite. At least you know he can run fast and good. Obviously, plenty of the others are capable of running faster and gooder than ADTS, we just haven't seen that yet.
Better Days Ahead is a Bective Stud/Gordon Elliott entry, and was a good winner last time from Chapeau de Soleil ("gwarrn the sun hat!") in a small field. Who knows that form amounts to?
Willie has won this with some of his unexposed bigger priced runners, such as Briar Hill (25/1, ridden by Ruby Walsh), Relegate (25/1), Champagne Fever (16/1) and Ferny Hollow (11/1). So the advice is to split a small stake between a few of the unexposed Mullins bombs, and hope to be lucky.
Backing all last day winning Willie Bumper runners at bigger than 10/1 in this would have yielded six winners and six more places from 42 starters, and an SP profit of 67 points! A point each way would have returned a surplus of 77.4 points, and that before you include the two fourths and three fifths that some bookies would have paid out on. You'll be taking a good few this time around but it's a less annoying way to play things than betting the buzz horse and watching it crawl home midfield.
Champion Bumper Pace Map
Pinch of salt stuff here, but for what it's worth, this is what we've discovered about the field so far in terms of run style.
Champion Bumper selection
No idea!
Suggestion: Bet the big priced Willies. Perhaps 16/1 Western Diego and 20/1 Westport Cove, e/w with five places in a couple of shops.
*
These seven skirmishes will deliver us to our half time cup of tea. We might need something stronger by then! Regardless, we've another 14 chances at redemption / further glory / giving it back* [*delete as applicable]
Good luck!
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Energumene_2022ChampionChase_TonyBloom.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-03-13 16:08:252023-03-13 16:08:26Cheltenham Festival 2023: Day Two Preview, Trends, Tips
All those preview nights; all those column inches and television opinions and now, the ground, if you please, is soft, writes Tony Stafford. And if the forecast I saw on BBC weather on Saturday is correct - I still look at it first even though you don’t get much worth having for your licence fee these days, ask Gary Lineker - it’s bound to get softer.
Day by day, hour by hour, the rain will intrude. The same precipitation that wilfully stayed away in the autumn and for much of the winter, then suddenly decided to turn up. Ironically, it materialised just when trainers of soft ground horses were barely going through the motions of training them, so sure had been the long-range prognostications of fast ground. Now, though, we can expect buckets of the stuff.
Only two weeks ago at a preview evening when good/good to soft was the undercurrent, we had to be aware that while the course officials would do their darndest to maintain it, Cheltenham and its far too efficient drainage would surely sort/rule that out. Beware running soft-ground horses on it had to be the message!
Now, though, the capricious UK weather has shown its full force. Nicky Richards planned a five-horse raid at Ayr the other day. On the wet west coast of Scotland in early March, the ground was fast and three of the quintet stayed home.
Yet here we are after a few rain showers and a couple of blankets of snow, and it’s shaping up like those days of yore when the Irish used to come over and relish the sight of hock-deep mud and jockeys twirling their whips like shillelaghs.
It’s March 14 tomorrow and already trainers I talk to regularly are avoiding risking winning novice chases with potential high-class prospects as we’re getting dangerously close to the late April cut-off point for season 2022-23.
Something needs to be done about that. Most of the top stables don’t really get going until October bringing in their top horses. Cheltenham in March is not just the Holy Grail, for many it’s the Only Grail and when you look at this week’s cards, that fact is driven home ever more forcibly. Equally, after Aintree next month, there’s not much left, either.
I thought I’d check up on Willie Mullins. He has declared 24 horses for tomorrow’s opening phase. He has 43 entered for Wednesday, 22 on Thursday and 27 on Friday. I’m guessing he’ll win eight races. Just a guess, though.
To business, Constitution Hill will not worry if the ground is fast, good, soft, heavy or under water. He’ll win as he likes and write another page in his and Nicky Henderson’s legend.
I mentioned shillelaghs earlier, advisably because it reminded me of one Cheltenham Festival meeting when the late and more than great John (Lord) Oaksey penned one of his most memorable outpourings.
And outpourings they were! It started something like this – I subbed it in the office that night and wish I’d kept it in my inside pocket for the 46 years that have elapsed since that awful day.
“Only two stands blew down at Cheltenham yesterday, the Irish only won four <I think> races and two of England’s greatest ever jumps horses, Bula’s and Lanzarote’s careers came to an untimely end.”
Both horses were trained in Lambourn by Fred Winter, the multiple champion jump jockey who progressed to even more fame and success as a trainer of elite racehorses and future trainers, among them Nicky Henderson and Oliver Sherwood.
Both horses were coming to the end of distinguished careers. Bula, winner of the Champion Hurdle in 1971 and 1972, won 32 more races over eight seasons until his fall at the fifth fence in the Two-Mile Champion Chase on that fateful day. He sustained torn shoulder muscles. For a while as he convalesced it was hoped he could be saved but after two months, one leg became almost totally paralysed and he was put down, aged 12, robbed of an honourable retirement.
The denouement was even more stark for Lanzarote. Selected to run in the Gold Cup, which was thought to be Bula’s target, Lanzarote was an early casualty, broke a leg and was destroyed. He, too, was a Champion Hurdle winner, in 1974.
Imagine the trauma for Winter, his staff and the horses’ owners. Both horses were regarded as superior champions of the breed. In the highly respected assessment of the Best Horses of the 20th Century, John Randall and Tony Morris rated Bula 5th best hurdler, only behind fellow champions Night Nurse, their number one, Persian War, Monksfield and Comedy Of Errors and ahead of Istabraq. Timeform put Lanzarote in their top ten hurdlers of all time.
One person who will have been as devastated as anyone that day – the future Lord Oaksey included – was Nicky Henderson. He was Winter’s number one assistant at the time of those twin tragedies and didn’t start his own stable until the following year.
Tomorrow he can be in a position after almost half a century to write a new page in National Hunt history by sending out Constitution Hill to usurp all those wonderful horses, names I grew up with just as he did.
Mullins, Henderson, Elliott, De Bromhead, Nicholls and the rest. They all wait for the good horse, but first need to land the big fish who will pay for the privilege of having horses in their elite and winning-most yards.
I wrote a few weeks ago about the Willie Mullins stranglehold on Friday’s Triumph Hurdle. Of seven in the field, he still has two geldings and five fillies confirmed among 17 six-day declarations.
Gala Marceau, who won the juvenile race at the Dublin Racing Festival when original favourite Lossiemouth suffered a troubled run, now vies for the top spot, and Blood Destiny is the only other in the line-up on offer at less than 16/1.
All five fillies were bought from France, presumably for massive money and all have found their way into high-octane ownership. I hope all seven run and fill the first seven places. They pay down to eighth after all, although should any of the ten walk-on performers intervene, that would represent a slight on the Mullins method. Just joking, Willie!
I digress. Fundamental at the time was Oaksey’s concern with animal and rider welfare – he was a major figurehead in the original organisation of the Injured Jockeys’ Fund. He also found the flogging of horses to get every ounce from them in the typically near-waterlogged ground of those pre-drainage (and less global-warming affected) days to be total anathema.
I would imagine he might find the latest toughened whip rules to his liking, although Mullins and other top trainers seem to think that Cheltenham might be spoilt with jockeys concentrating more on counting than riding horses to their best.
John Oaksey was a force for good, causes and, above all, writing. As the son of the lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial, he could hardly have been anything else, never mind a wonderful colleague for many years. As they go up the hill for the first time tomorrow, his genial visage will slip briefly into the consciousness, before as he would wish it, thoughts turn quite rightly to the wonderful horses we are privileged to watch in action.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ConstitutionHill_TolworthHurdle.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-03-13 11:37:212023-03-13 11:37:22Monday Musings: On Lord Oaksey and the Constitution
We're back! The 2023 Cheltenham Festival is here, and it's going to be a belter! 28 races, almost all of them head-scratching puzzles in terms wagering possibilities... and that's just as it should be! Let's get straight to it.
1.30 Supreme Novices' Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m 1/2f)
Half past one on the middle Tuesday in March is when the roar reverberates around the Cotswolds as racing regulars and occasionals alike release 361 days' worth of waiting for the first of seven races on the first of four days of fiercely contested battles.
The Supreme is sometimes won by a clear cut favourite - think Appreciate It or Douvan - but, more often than not, the waters are muddier and the multiple returned for finding the winner more appealing. This year falls into the latter bracket, and surely bookies all over the country will be desperately trying to 'get' Facile Vega. That is not, of course, because he can't or won't win; but rather that his price probably over-states his chance currently. Here's why...
Ignoring the fact that he was a terrific bumper horse - winning Grade 1's both here and at Punchestown - and the fact that he's Quevega's son, his actual hurdling form is not out of this world. A maiden win against a field that has managed a solitary handicap hurdle victor, off a perch of a relatively lowly 106, from 27 runs between them, was followed by a much more impressive Grade 1 score where he beat three subsequent winners. That legitimately put Facile Vega in short at the top of the market; but, since then, he's run a very poor race over the same course and distance in a G1 at the Dublin Racing Festival (DRF). Excuses have been proffered for that clunk: he was messed about with by High Definition, he went too fast, etc. But they didn't go crazy fast, and High Def mainly messed with himself as he tumbled at the fourth. Word is (take it or leave it, obvs) that FV was lame for a week after Leopardstown so, if you've backed him ante post you'll see that as legitimacy and hope, and if you haven't you'll see it as a concern and a reason to look elsewhere. Such is the way of value betting...
I've backed him at shorter than he is now and I am not remotely inclined to go in again!
But assessing the remainder is also tricky. Marine Nationale was the early season poster boy - and he might perhaps be the late season heartthrob, too, except that we've not seen him since early December; his form has taken a few dents in the interim. In fairness, he's an unbeaten-in-four Grade 1 winner so it will be no shock if he's the best of these but that 100-day layoff would be the longest by a winner since Captain Cee Bee in 2008 and only the second triple-digit absence since at least 1997.
Il Etait Temps has to be a player. Only fifth and fourth behind Vauban in the four-year-old Grade 1's at Cheltenham and Punchestown a year ago, Willie Mullins has had a novice hurdler with plenty of experience to work with this term; and he's been rewarded with wins either side of getting closest to Facile Vega at Christmas. Of course, most recently Il Etait Temps won 'that' race in which HD dived and FV bombed. Although he was a bit awkward early in transit that day, he powered through the line and was just on ten lengths clear of second-placed Inthepocket, Dark Raven a neck back in third. Despite his relative hurdling experience, IET can look a bit slovenly at a flight for all that he's generally safe across them.
High Definition is obviously a very high class ex-flat horse; he was favourite for the Dante as a three-year-old and ran second in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup and third in the Group 1 Coronation Cup last year. The problem is that, as obviously and unsurprisingly fast as he has been, he jumps like, well, like a Dante favourite. I think he's very likely to be found out in a race as hot as this, especially with other pace players from the get go.
Both Inthepocket and Dark Raven have a place chance on that DRF form: they each brought unbeaten in three records to the G1 party there and each emerged with a degree of credit, Inthepocket having found himself exactly that at a key point in the race. Crucially, both are entitled to be wiser for their first exposure to top class company.
What of the British challenge? The most obvious contender is Tahmuras, winner of a maiden hurdle at Chepstow, a Listed at Haydock and the Grade 1 Tolworth at Sandown. There have been six subsequent winners from his maiden, and the Tolworth form is standing up too: the third there won a G2 next time, the fourth won a novice and was then second in the same G2, and the fifth - Authorised Speed - easily reverted to winning ways back in shallower waters. He's won on soft and good to soft so no ground concerns. The question is how the UK level compares with its Irish counterpart.
Rare Edition was very disappointing when only second in the Sidney Banks at Huntingdon, a race won in 2020 by Shishkin en route to Supreme glory. He apparently scoped dirty after the race and there has been some whispering about back spasms, both of which appear to have now been resolved. Trainer Charlie Longsdon is bullish about his chance and, on the evidence of the book, he's a place possible at least... if the British form holds its own.
The talking horse in recent days has been Diverge, who won a 22 runner maiden hurdle by 23 lengths. None of the eleven horses to run again since that race have won, and only one hit the frame: the form is weak regardless of how good Diverge might turn out to be. He's inexperienced, too, and for those reasons, as the Dragons say, I'm out.
Olly Murphy runs two in the race, Chasing Fire and Strong Leader, and my preference of the pair is for the former. He's unbeaten in a point, a bumper, and three hurdle races and, though untested in Graded company, he's kicked to the kerb everything he's faced hitherto. I feel like the quicker they go the better for him, as he looks a very strong stayer.
Fennor Cross is a massive price but is a dual Cheltenham hurdle winner this season, the second of which was in the Grade 2 Supreme trial. That was in mid-November, however, and he's not been seen since as, presumably, he needs good ground - the underfoot for both those course scores. Alas, it looks unlikely that will be the description for race one, day one.
Supreme Novices' Pace Projection
Likely to be quick, as forward-goers like High Definition and Rare Edition collide with an ocean of adrenaline coursing through the jockeys' veins for the first rising tape of the week.
Supreme Novices' Hurdle Selection
I don't have a strong opinion here except that the favourite is poor value. Note, I don't think he is sure to lose, just that his win probability may be lower than his price implies. That's a general take through all of the races: any horse can - and, at Cheltenham, often does - win any race. So we're looking for something that might have a better chance than implied in its price. In this race, I think Il Etait Temps is a fair price, especially if you can find four each way places; and it wouldn't surprise if Tahmurasran a big race either, especially with his trainer in terrific form.
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2.10 Arkle Challenge Chase (Grade 1, 2m)
The first chase of the week is a speed test for novices, and frequently advertises the claims of a potential Champion Chaser of the near future. This season, battle lines are drawn between Britain and Ireland and, as with the Champion Hurdle two races later, team captains are Messrs Henderson and Mullins.
For the home squad, Hendo saddles Jonbon, second (third if you include yawning daylight) in last year's Supreme behind Constitution Hill. In the absence of that monster, Jonbon won the G1 Top Novices' Hurdle at Aintree, beating a chap called El Fabiolo. This season, the JP McManus-owned seven-year-old has won all three chase starts, mostly in the manner of a good'un; that said, he was more workmanlike than striking in his Festival prep in the Kingmaker at Warwick. There, he eventually eked out a five-length margin over Calico in a match. The form of that race has received a boost with the runner-up - a twelve-length winner in Class 3 handicap company before Warwick - going in again at Doncaster in a £20k Class 2 handicap since. Obviously, this is a different kettle of gravy, but there's also every chance that Jonbon was under-cooked for his preparatory spin: he'll be cherry ripe now.
Pop back to that Aintree G1 and we find our other joint favourite. There was little between Jonbon and El Fabiolo in Liverpool and they may again be hard to separate. Willie's contender has had two chasing starts, winning by 19L and 10L, the latter in the Grade 1 Irish Arkle at the Dublin Racing Festival. Handy enough throughout, he pounced on trailblazing Dysart Dynamo approaching the second last and had enough energy left to go clear of a three-way picture for the places between Banbridge, DD and Appreciate It. If they all stand up it's hard to see the placed horses reversing with the winner, in spite of the argument that the furlong and a bit shorter trip might favour the pace horse. That said, El Fabiolo did not impress with his jumping at Leopardstown.
Those that fell or unseated last time are 1 from 14 in recent times with nine of them sent off 11/1 or shorter: it's not obviously a positive for the chance of Saint Roi but nor is it a terminal knock. This lad was fourth in last year's Champion Hurdle and won a Grade 1 novice chase at Christmas, so he's oodles of class; but he was hurdling for four seasons including his time in France which sometimes makes it more difficult for horses to make a chasing shape thereafter. He's bang there on talent but that leaping has to be a concern.
The rest are unlikely to be good enough.
Arkle Pace Projection
There looks to be plenty of early speed in this line up with each of Ha d'Or, Dysart Dynamo and Jonbon leading in their most recent three races. Jonbon is expected to sit slightly off the fiercest of the sizzle.
Arkle Chase Selection
A race that will probably play out in line with the market expectation of a duel between Jonbon and El Fabiolo. If El Fab's jumping holds up, I think he'll win, and if it doesn't I think Jonbon will win. I don't really see Dysart Dynamo sustaining his front-footed charge and prefer Saint Roi to travel round in his own time and pick up the each way pieces. Not especially a betting race if you haven't already played, I don't think.
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2.50 Ultima Handicap Chase (Grade 3 handicap, 3m1f)
The first of nine handicaps and I'll tell you now that my thoughts will be (mercifully) brief. This race has been won by the home team exclusively since Dun Doire and Tony Martin wrested it away in 2006. They actually don't run many - just three darts this year - and I'll be fielding against them, perhaps carelessly.
My shortlist is Corach Rambler, The Goffer (though he is Irish), and the Tizzard pair, Oscar Elite and The Big Breakaway.
Corach Rambler won the race last year and will again be played late; he was much the best that day and is only six pounds higher now. A fine fourth of 15 in the Coral Gold Cup (Hennessy as was) in November was his most recent run, though that was 108 days ago. Joes Edge defied a 114 day absence in 2007 though such extended layoffs are exceptional when it comes to Ultima winners.
The Goffer won a Grade A handicap chase at Leopardstown last time off a mark of 138. He's got 149 here, as a result of both that win and the recalibration of Irish marks to British ones; while that seems a hefty enough elevation to overcome, the step back up to an extended three miles could be in his favour. He's a novice and so remains somewhat unexposed.
I had a good bet on Oscar Elite in this last year. That partially paid off - the place part specifically - as he finished third. Given he was subsequently found to have bled from the nose, and he is now just a pound higher in the weights, and that he won last time out, I like his chance again. He won't want it too soft, though. Tizzard's other runner, The Big Breakaway, on the other hand loves the wet. He was third in the Brown Advisory Novices' Chase two years ago and a game second in the Welsh National at the end of last year - carrying 11-13 - last time. He jumps, he stays, he handles the track and ground and he's very much a runner for me.
Ultima Pace Projection
It will be frenetic, due to the field size and the number of jockeys having their first ride of the week. Luck in running is needed, and usually patience, too.
Ultima Handicap Chase Selection
Skybet are paying EIGHT places on this race, and a couple of others are seven places deep. That gives us plenty of chances and the first name on the team sheet is Corach Rambler, whose run style lends itself to hitting the frame even without extended places! I'm slightly on weather watch with Oscar Elite, very much liking his chance on good to soft but less keen on softer. I'd rather take shorter when knowing the ground with him. In the end, I'm swerving The Goffer on the basis of the Irish record, which will of course be the wrong thing to do one of these years; but I definitely want a bit of the The Big Breakaway with the extended places as well.
Suggestion: With as many as eight places on offer, you can take two or three each way and potentially be rewarded on all places while trebling your chance of hitting the win jackpot. In that context, back any/all of 6/1 Corach Rambler, 11/1 Oscar Elite (wait for ground news is my advice), and 14/1 The Big Breakaway.
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3.30 Champion Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m 1/2f)
The undoubted highlight of day one is the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle. Since just under two hours before last year's Champion Hurdle, Constitution Hill has been close to, or outright, favourite for the 2023 renewal. The reason for that was his destruction of a solid-looking Supreme Novices' Hurdle field in the 2022 curtain raiser, where he easily despatched Jonbon et al in a very fast time. True, both Dysart Dynamo (joint favourite with CH that day) and Mighty Potter, unbeaten in four since, both failed to complete; but that is, after all, a fairly important part of the challenge.
Since sauntering home a year ago, Nicky Henderson's six-year-old son of Blue Bresil has bolted up by a dozen lengths from Epatante in the G1 Fighting Fifth, and hosed in by seventeen lengths from the same rival in the G1 Christmas Hurdle at Kempton. He's won his last four starts, all Grade 1's, by 12L, 22L, 12L, and 17L - and had won his previous start by 14L. His speed figures are just about off the scale and he can take a position wherever in the field meaning tactics are not a worry. Given he's normally an excellent jumper, there are essentially no holes in Constitution Hill's profile whatsoever and he's a very worthy odds-on favourite.
If this year's Champion Hurdle is not to be a procession, the most obvious candidate to make a race of things is State Man. Since 2009, Nicky Henderson leads Willie Mullins - in whose care State Man resides - 5-4 and, in search of the equaliser, Mullins' Man has very strong credentials. At least, in any other year he would have. To wit, he's unbeaten in six straight completed starts, a sequence that includes last year's County Hurdle followed by four consecutive Grade 1 races. In that quartet of G1 scores, he's earned closing comments as follows: "easily", "comfortably", "easily", "comfortably".
Well, something has to give, and the market is fairly confident it will be the British champion lording it over his Irish counterpart. I'm also confident that will be the case having not been overly impressed with what State Man found off the bridle in the County, the only time he's needed to be pushed out to the line. But I don't have enough threes to try to steal some ones at the prevailing odds. So how else to play? We'll come to that. First, what of the supporting cast?
Willie has more than just State Man; he also saddles last year's Triumph Hurdle winner, Vauban, and he's an interesting contender. While Constitution Hill and State Man are likely to be on or close to the pace, Vauban has been ridden a lot more patiently and, as a result, has finished his races off well in respectable defeats to State Man. If State Man tries to force things against the favourite - and it's unlikely the Closutton team will be riding for a place - then Vauban may be the one to hoover up any crumbs.
The second possible in that context is I Like To Move It, whose Greatwood and Kingwell Hurdle wins have advertised his 'dark horse' claims. True, he was well seen off by Marie's Rock in the Relkeel, though that was over an extra half mile; and he was no match for State Man in the County a year ago. He has some impressive performances to his name, most of them on genuine good ground, but I can't quite shake that County clunk from my memory banks.
Not So Sleepy has a fair record in the race: 5th two years ago and 6th last year, but he's eleven now; and I don't give Zanahiyr or Jason The Militant any material chance.
Champion Hurdle Pace Projection
Any of Jason The Militant, Not So Sleepy, or the big pair of Constitution Hill and State Man could take them along. Most likely is that the top two in the betting will mark each other behind the rags, with Vauban expected to be ridden cold at the back of the field.
Champion Hurdle Selection
The win market is all about Constitution Hill, who better ratings judges are suggesting is the best we've seen in a very, very long time. If that's right, he's a fair enough price for those who like playing big at short. Each way is not an option in a seven-runner race generally, still less with such a domineering jolly; but 'without the favourite' is a way in. That market has its own shortie, too, in State Man but I feel Vauban 'without' is a credible alternative given how the race is likely to pan out. If State Man and Constitution Hill have at it from far enough out, it's possible that SM cracks; Vauban wasn't far behind him in steadily enough run G1's in Ireland and can come through for silver.
Suggestion: Back Vauban without the favourite at anything better than 7/2 (4/1 with Hills at time of writing).
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4.10 Mares' Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m4f)
There has been plenty of chat on the Maremite Hurdle - some love it, some hate it. Me? I'm in the love camp, and I don't really understand the naysayers who I feel are only rehashing the argument, which has surely had its day now, that it denigrates the Champion Hurdle. Let's just accept the new world and move forward - and what better time to do that than in a year which features the winners of THREE Champion Hurdles?
Well, why aren't they running in that race then, I hear (one of) you cry! The answer, of course, is trajectory; and that is the byword for attempting to solve this wagering puzzle. Cast back to 2020, and a six-year-old Epatante was winning the Blue Riband while forty minutes later Honeysuckle, also six, was winning this race. Five-year-old Marie's Rock had won a Listed mares race at Taunton, and Love Envoi was a year away from making her debut.
In 2021, Epatante could only finish third in the Champion Hurdle, behind Honeysuckle. Marie's Rock had recently run third in a mares' Grade 2 at Doncaster and Love Envoi was about to win a Wexford bumper on her first start. A year later, last year, and Honeysuckle again won the Champion Hurdle with Epatante her nearest pursuer on this occasion. Marie's Rock had graduated to winning the Mares' Hurdle and Love Envoi the Mares' Novices Hurdle.
And so to this term. Honeysuckle, heretofore unbeaten in 16 Rules races and a point to point, is now without a win in her two seasonal spins. Third to the improving - and very good on soft ground - Teahupoo over this sort of trip, and then second to the improving - and just very good - State Man over two miles is hardly poor form; but it is a step down from where she was previously. The question then is whether Honeysuckle is regressing slowly enough to still have something in hand of Epatante, herself steadily on the downgrade, and of the progressive Marie's Rock and highly progressive Love Envoi: that's what makes this such a fascinating conundrum.
Epatante has been thumped twice in Grade 1's by Constitution Hill this season; and then beat a field of inferior mares in appropriate fashion. She's only run once at this longer distance, when winning the Grade 1 Aintree Hurdle easily last season. Her main market rival that day fell at the last as Epatante was looming upsides, but she looked to have had him covered at that point. She is holding her form fairly well and is unexposed at the trip.
Marie's Rock has been a revelation since winning a handicap hurdle in December 2021: from that point on, she's won five of six - pulling up having been hampered on the other start - a sequence that includes the Mares' Hurdle and Punchestown equivalent (both G1) last season and the Relkeel Hurdle on her only start this year. My reservation, aside from the very light 2022/23 campaign, is the substance of her form: in last year's Mares' Hurdle she beat 150-rated Echoes In Rain, who doesn't seem to stay this far, and a bunch of 140-something mares; at Punchestown, she beat a conceivably over the top Epatante (who had run 2nd in the Champion Hurdle and won the Aintree Hurdle in the previous six weeks); and in the Relkeel she beat an array of dodgy geezers the likes of which would not look out of place outside an East London boozer (I should know!). She might win - she's just about favourite after all - but her rising star may have just about reached its apex to my eye.
As for Love Envoi, she needs the rain to continue her own ascent. She has won eight of her nine starts to date, including last year's Dawn Run Mares' Novices' Hurdle here and her only defeat - second to Brandy Love - was on yielding turf. She's tough, loves the mud and has improved her top Racing Post Rating in each of her last seven races; it's not a big price that she'll improve on it again - the question is whether she can do it to a sufficient degree to usurp those above her. Trajectories, eh?
Brandy Love has been very lightly raced but is a Grade 1 winner at this range, when seeing off Love Envoi who, by contrast, was having her sixth battle of last season. I don't expect her to confirm the form with Harry Fry's mare.
Mares' Hurdle Pace Projection
This looks like it will be run at a sensible even gallop.
Mares' Hurdle Selection
A fantastic race in terms of stalwarts of the game and in competitive terms. Finding the winner will be difficult. Having backed Honeysuckle, I didn't think she'd face such a deep field - and I don't think connections did either. But she's still just about the one to beat, along with Epatante. I'm against Marie's Rock - fully mindful that it might look preposterous post-race - and, if it is soft, I'd want Love Envoi onside, too. It's that kind of contest!
Suggestion: The each way 'bet to nothing' (it doesn't exist, but you know what I mean) is 9/2 Epatante, who looks sure to be bang there; and I'm going to have a small bit on 9/1 Love Envoi as well, if the ground is soft.
Too difficult. I've backed loads of them, which is ridiculous, because I haven't got a clue who wins. The average winning SP since 2012 has been 27/1, and there have been nine winners priced 20/1 or bigger since the race's inception in 2005; so the market doesn't have a clue who wins either! The suggestion, then, is to ignore anything shorter than 16/1 and try to make a case for two or three darts, win only, for small change.
In that spirit, I offer the following:
Afadil - a Paul Nicholls French import a la Sanctuaire, Qualando and Diego du Charmil, all of whom won this for PFN
Metamorpheus and Jazzy Matty - with thanks to Gavin Ryan for this snippet: this pair both ran in the Naas race that has thrown the winner of the last four Fred Boodles. So, too, did Byker, Sir Allen, and Morning Soldier - and the one I had most on for this prior to that race, Almuhit. He blew the start and was left 30 lengths!!!
Boodles Handicap Hurdle Pace Projection
A good half dozen possible pace angles here, headed perhaps by Mighty Mo Missouri. Expect thrills and spills.
Boodles Handicap Hurdle selection
I cannot with clean conscience propose you bet anything in this race on my say so. I've backed a few, including the three mentioned above.
Suggestion: One for a blindfold and Mr Felt Tippy, your magic marker
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5.30 National Hunt Chase (Grade 2, 3m 6f)
The four miler is not quite the race it was, and not just because it's only three miles and six furlongs in distance these days. This oldest race of the Festival and monument to the Corinthian nature that characterised National Hunt racing for a million years has undergone more nips and tucks to its race conditions than <insert your preferred surgically enhanced pantomime dame here>.
Its current format, borne somewhat legitimately out of the ugly optic that was the 2019 renewal, where just four of 18 starters completed and 'encouragement' was outside of what might be termed the comfort zone for even the most stoic of country sports fans, comprises more than just a reduced race distance. That range truncation implies a reduction in the number of fences, and there are indeed two fewer - 23 versus the previous 25 - and, additionally, no horse rated below 120 or with fewer than two chase starts (including one in the current season and one over about three miles or more) will qualify. The upshot is that a race that drew 17-20-18-16-18 runners up to 2019 has, since the amendments, attracted 14, 12 and, last year, just six runners. It's another smallish field this year, with ten going to post.
The market has been headed for a long time by Gaillard du Mesnil, a hyper consistent horse but only an occasional visitor to the winners' enclosure. To wit, in 13 Rules starts he's finished in the places on all bar one occasion, but has won just four times - and only once in eight starts in the past two years. That's got to be a concern about a horse priced around the even money mark, for all that many of those form lines give him a clear edge on his field. He was third in the Brown Advisory Novices' Chase last year and filled the same position, in a field of 27, in the Irish Grand National a month later. This season, GdM followed up a good second to Mighty Potter over an inadequate two and a half miles with one of those elusive wins - and by eight lengths no less - against Churchstonewarrior, a surprise defector at the final declaration stage, in a three mile Grade 1 at Christmas. He was again beaten by the Potter when dropped back to the Potter's trip territory in a G1 at the DRF, and will clearly relish this more stamina-emphasised test. But did I mention that he doesn't win all that often?
The key to Chemical Energy appears to be in the turf. His form on good ground is 112111, while on softer he's 140854. It's bound to be softer than good and he has some stamina questions to answer, too. He's not for me.
Mahler Mission ran a fair race (7th of 16) in last year's Albert Bartlett and, though he was whacked in a novices' chase at Cheltenham early in the season, that was surely a sighter on ground much faster than ideal. More recently he's won a beginners' and then ran a gallant second to Churchstonewarrior.
Minella Crooner was a good staying hurdler, running second to Minella Cocooner in the Nathaniel Lacy at the 2022 DRF. He's one from four over fences though was also second in a Grade 2 in early season. The balance of his performances is not at the level of some of his rivals, and he might not want it too soft either. However, an interesting outsider to consider is Tenzing: he's still a maiden after three chase starts but that trio includes finishing close to Gerri Colombe and Ramillies before being beaten a little further last time by Mahler Mission. On the pick of those runs, he could again challenge for the frame.
Best of the (limited) British defence is probably Mister Coffey, a perma-bridesmaid trained by Nicky Henderson. He's finished second in five of his last six starts, a run that includes the G1 Scilly Isles Novices' Chase of last year and the Kim Muir a month later. He looked a strong stayer at last season's Festival and this test might be just the ticket.
Of the big prices, Coolvalla has nothing like the ratings to be in the shake up at this level. And yet, he's won handicap chases by 19 lengths and 17 lengths the last twice, has proven stamina, jumps well, and comes here nicely rested. He might outrun his 66/1 odds.
National Hunt Chase Pace Projection
A few possibles for the lead, most notably Mahler Mission, Minella Crooner, and perhaps Bellatrixsa. At the other end of the field, Chemical Energy will probably be patiently ridden by that master of the waiting ride, Jamie Codd.
National Hunt Chase Selection
On official ratings, Gaillard du Mesnil is clear of his field and he obviously has the talent to win; but his inability to put races to bed, even if they have been higher level races, has to be a worry at the price. Against him, there is a clutch of horses separated by only a few pounds on ratings, and it will be the one that adapts best to this somewhat unique test who is the each way bet. That might be the ultra-consistent Mister Coffey, who has placed Festival form to his name.
Suggestion: Back Mister Coffey each way at 9/1.
*
It's a fascinating start to the week, with top class horses aplenty and deep, deep fields in the main. Good luck with your betting in the opening quarter!
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/honeysuckle_HattonsGrace2020.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-03-12 18:44:352023-03-12 21:18:07Cheltenham Festival 2023: Day One Preview, Tips
In front of a packed and enthralled gathering at South Kensington Holiday Inn, London Racing Club's annual 'best of breed' Cheltenham Preview Evening unfurled. Gently and eloquently compered by Racing Post senior writer, Lee Mottershead (LM), the panel further comprised stats man extraordinaire and former author of Weatherby's annual guide, Matt Tombs (MT), Racing TV's outstanding host and form judge, Lydia Hislop (LH), and - with a line from the odds makers, Sam Hockenhull of Fitzdares (SH).
What follows are their thoughts as far as I was able to scribble them down while still mainly aiming to enjoy the show!
TUESDAY
Supreme Novices' Hurdle
LH - Concerned by Facile Vega's last run. Was reportedly lame after: that's a worry. Prefer Rare Edition each way, who was impressive at Christmas but came back with a dirty scope after his race at Huntingdon. Not dismissing Il Etait Temps, though he can pull hard.
MT - Is FV ground dependent? Best form seems to be on soft, could be a place lay on a sounder surface. Il Etait Temps is unsexy but is a good value e/w play. Like Rare Edition as well. At longer prices, Diverge and Doctor Bravo are mildly interesting in what looks a very open and potentially substandard renewal.
Arkle
SH - Hard to separate the top two in the betting
MT - Strongest view of day 1: on form, El Fabiolo should be clear favourite. Jonbon jumped right at Warwick and, while El Fab also has jumping concerns, he's always jumped well immediately after making his mistakes. Dysart Dynamo is probably the best jumper in the field but if he goes too hard on the front could bomb out completely.
LH - Feel like the Warwick race has been overplayed in terms of Jonbon form. Calico (2nd there) showed he'd improved when winning next time. Not worried about Jonbon adjusting right. El Fabiolo "occasionally quite clumsy", but agree the Irish Arkle is the best form on show so far. But this race is likely to be the best form by season end. Saint Roi is interesting - "jockey admitted falling off" last time. Won't get involved in any pacey business on the front end and so is playable e/w at the prices.
Champion Hurdle
MT - Think Constitution Hill might be better than Istabraq; he's the complete package.
LH - It's a horse race ("thankfully"), and stuff can go wrong; but it will very much have to for CH to get beaten in the CH. I Like To Move It the "wise guy" horse but his forward-going style may not be suited to the tactical shape of the race.
Mares' Hurdle
SH - Epatante is a very interesting supplement. Want to lay Honeysuckle. Love Envoi is backable on softer ground.
LH - Can't make a strong case for Honeysuckle, but can see why she's stepped up to Mares' Hurdle distance. Epatante appears to be regressing more slowly than Honeysuckle and "mullered" some lesser horses at Doncaster last time. Interested in Love Envoi and Maries Rock if she shows here, but not Echoes In Rain.
MT - Can see a wall of money for Honeysuckle on the day so might be a back to lay opportunity. Maries Rock probably going to Stayers' Hurdle but would "really fancy her" if turning up here.
Rest of Tuesday
SH - Ultima: Happygolucky ran well at Newcastle off a big break before tiring in the straight. Was given a sighter at Cheltenham next time. Form looks decent and trainer Kim Bailey thinks a lot of the horse. Can't see Corach Rambler winning from behind again. Don't like Tekao in the Boodles, don't think he'll get up the hill.
MT - 'Waited with' run style can be a positive in the Ultima where plenty of jockeys go off too quickly. Gaillard du Mesnil is opposable at the prices in the NH Chase. Don't think that race's profile suits such a strong stayer any more. Churchstonewarrior could be a playable alternative - going slower could suit him.
LH - Happygolucky in the Ultima. Into Overdrive is interesting, too. Afadil in the Boodles. Want to oppose GdM in the NH Chase, with Mahler Mission and Chemical Energy viable options.
WEDNESDAY
Ballymore Novices' Hurdle
SH - Impaire Et Passe (IeP) the recent money horse.
LH - IeP has the right combination of speed and jumping. Ruby/Willie vibes are very strong. Inthepocket is interesting up in trip; didn't the run of the race at the Dublin Racing Festival. Might need playing late but looks fair e/w.
MT - Would love to own Hermes Allen, but wouldn't run him in this race! Nicholls doesn't tend to hard train novice hurdlers. IeP is "nap of the whole Festival". He has everything you need for this job.
Brown Advisory Novices' Chase
LH - Thyme Hill form awful, the time was "glacial" 😆 Rain might be important for Gerri Colombe. Without rain, not sure he'll enjoy downhill sections of the track. Like The Real Whacker, but form has taken some knocks.
SH - Don't like Thyme Hill
MT - Lay of the meeting is Thyme Hill. Want to oppose Sir Gerhard who is inexperienced over fences and would probably be running over shorter if trained by anyone else than Willie. Gerri is a banker if it's wet. Like TRW as well. Thunder Rock could be an 'in running' play if he's travelling well in the first mile.
Champion Chase
MT - Edwardstone seems to be the momentum horse. Most likely winner but Editeur du Gite is some value - he's underestimated. Gentleman Du Mee is the horse liked most at the prices: looks progressive.
LH - Energumene jumps right which is a problem at Cheltenham; cannot have him at all. EdG is a fair price, and he might be Gentleman's problem if he doesn't allow that one to dominate from the front. Edwardstone probably just wins, after a good prep when a lot went wrong last time. He's the nap of the day.
Rest of Wednesday
MT - Cross Country: Gordon Elliott is the man for this now, with a stranglehold on the race. Delta Work probably wins if the ground is soft, Galvin probably wins if it's quicker. In Grand Annual, Rouge Vif and Sizing Pottsie have interesting profiles.
LH - Rouge Vif had a nice prep for the Grand Annual at Doncaster, but would be worried about rain for him.
THURSDAY
Turners Novices' Chase
SH - Betting each way at shortish prices is not for everyone, but Banbridge will surely be hard to keep out of the frame and has a solid win chance, too.
LM - Nicky Henderson likes Balco Coastal at a big price
MT - Tipped Banbridge early season... for the Brown Advisory! In the Balco Coastal camp, possibly got there too soon in the Scilly Isles, and might appreciate going left-handed. One of the e/w bets of the week.
LH - Worried about Mighty Potter potentially not handling the travel/prelims again after last year. Could be different story this time but he has to overcome that and is very short in the betting considering. Banbridge is more straightforward and Balco Coastal is interesting at a bigger price, too. Appreciate It might be "a bit aged" to be winning this.
Stayers' Hurdle
SH - If Blazing Khal runs, he will go off favourite and looks the most likely winner.
LH - Will BK make it? The jockey - trainer's son - is a slight concern, too, as he won't be able to claim his usual five pounds. Maries Rock is very keen, while Teahupoo needs soft ground (might get it). Flooring Porter has had issues in the build up; Home By The Lee is improving but has more to find... which leaves Gold Tweet. The French horse has had a perfect prep, and jumps brilliantly.
MT - Ground important for Teahupoo who wants "proper soft". Blazing Khal has fitness and jockey concerns. Quite like HBTL though he wouldn't want a dawdling pace. If Maries Rock settles, she might be the bet.
Ryanair
MT - Hitman without the favourite (Shishkin) looks a good bet.
LH - Shishkin is a very likely winner; he "towers above the opposition". French Dynamite playable without the favourite: should like the return to Cheltenham, is improving but can make mistakes. Not interested in hold up types like Fury Road in this.
Rest of Thursday
LH - Mares' Novices: Luccia very good but Halka du Tabert, Magical Zoe and Harmonya Maker are all possibles, too. Check the ground before betting in this one. In the Festival Plate, Frero Banbou has been shaping like he needs this step up in trip.
SH - In the Mares' Novices, You Wear It Well keeps improving and wasn't far behind Hermes Allen in G1 Challow. Will stay on up the hill. Main danger might be Ashroe Diamond.
MT - Frero Banbou in the Plate. In the Mares' Novices, Halka du Tabert didn't get a good ride last time: she's better than that. In the Pertemps Final, Good Time Jonny could be a good old fashioned Tony Martin plot. Ran in Albert Bartlett last year, and been a mixed bag this season: very well weighted on his best form.
FRIDAY
Triumph Hurdle
MT - 'Vibes' have been for Blood Destiny, but not a betting race
LH - Preview-night yak has raised the possibility Paul Townend might ride Blood Destiny, which would move him into favouritism. Lossiemouth has to prove herself in an end to end gallop, while Gala Marceau probably didn't get the credit she deserved last time: she's overpriced in relation to Lossiemouth. All three of those are Willie horses, so jockey bookings will be instructive. Comfort Zone can run well and could be the e/w play, though Aintree might be more his bag.
Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle
MT - This is a great betting race, as it's a different test from most of the races through the season and throws up some big priced winner as a result. Only one winner shorter than 11/1 in the past nine years. That said, may need to be more open-minded this year. Favori de Champdou and Affordale Fury are two of interest, but whatever you like, swing win only rather than each way.
LH - Hiddenvalley Lake one to be with. Profile of race has changed: now less seasoned horses can win. Absolute Notions a player if running here; so too Dawn Rising. Will be looking at unexposed types at the 48 hour stage.
GOLD CUP
LH - Galopin Des Champs is a very likely winner but, at bigger prices, Ahoy Senor could have a perfect setup in this test. Noble Yeats looks good to pick up place pieces. Although Bravemansgame may prefer flatter tracks, he has the strongest form in the race this season. Strongly against A Plus Tard's profile coming into the race. Even at his best, which we've not seen for a year, GdC would beat him anyway.
MT - Coming round to Bravemansgame having not been a fan early season - he's very hard to knock. Ahoy Senor may attempt a Coneygree off the front. Heart says GdC, value is Bmg. Against APT.
Rest of Friday
SH - Mares Chase: Allegorie de Vassy might be in a different league.
LH - Mares Chase: Allegorie de Vassy "jumps wildly right". Along with Thyme Hill, she's the one all week to field against the strongest! Jeremy's Flame looks solid while Elimay is too big a price.
MT - Hunter Chase: Rocky's Howya is a young horse and a complete unknown quantity. He's 5/5 in points this season, some of the form of which has worked out nicely.
CHARITY BETS
LH - The Real Whacker in Brown Advisory Novices' Chase (SP)
MT - Balco Coastal e/w in the Turners Novices' Chase (16/1)
LM - Milkwood e/w in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle (40/1)
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/LRC_Chelto_2023.png320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-03-09 12:43:532023-03-11 16:43:08London Racing Club Cheltenham Preview Night Notes
I got a call from Jonathan Powell the other day, writes Tony Stafford. He’d been at an Anthony Honeyball get-together attended by this site’s boss Matt Bisogno, who runs several syndicates with the trainer and others. The venerable Mr Powell also contributes his journalistic skills to Honeyball’s stable as well as doing, as he says, “plenty for Paul Nicholls” among others.
It seems he had been gently directed to these words by Matt and had even looked at half a dozen examples of them. We were colleagues for a few years at the Press Association at the end of the 1960’s before I got my marching orders from Bernard Jones, the editor, for some betting indiscretions, winding up at the Daily Telegraph after a troubling nine-month career hiatus.
Jonathan went ever onwards and upwards and, once or twice, asked me to step in when he was on holiday from the Sunday People which he graced for many years with his erudite columns.
On one occasion, I went into their sports room office and the sports editor said: “Hello Tony, sit over there in Fred’s seat.” I said: “Sorry, I’d rather not!”
Fred of course was their columnist, the great Freddie Trueman, bluff Yorkshireman, devilishly fast opening bowler for England and excused for his boorish excesses in behaviour because of his undoubted talent.
I’d been at an Essex – Yorkshire county cricket match in 1958, so maybe 15 years before Neville invited me to take Fred’s seat, at one of the possibly dozen local grounds that the nomadic Essex side used to drop into through every summer. I think this one was at Valentine’s Park, Ilford, and it rained all day. I remember half an hour before play was finally abandoned I saw Fred on the edge of the pavilion and took my life in my hands.
“Mr Trueman,” I began, summoning up what little courage I had then – it’s not altered much in the interim six and a half decades – “Could I please have your autograph?” Mr Trueman, with a look of disdain, restricted himself to a curt “Fook off suun!” I sat somewhere else.
In Jonathan’s call he said he noted that I write all the time about half a century ago. This week I’m going to write solely about next week and if you think me unqualified, I am armed having gone, along with said Mr Bisogno, to a very small, select (and much delayed on the night) Cheltenham Preview gathering.
The delay was caused by the traffic problems of the star guest, Tom Scudamore, recently retired top jumps jockey. We reasoned, and rightly as it proved, someone with a measured and riding-oriented view of potential happenings at the first Cheltenham Festival he’d be missing as a jockey for the latter half of his 40 years would add plenty of value to proceedings.
His views were counter-point to the multiple ante-post framed opinions – and my word he does have plenty of each! – of Cheltenham Festival fanatic, Scott Ellis, who starts preparing for the following year on the Friday night the previous four days concludes, if not before.
You could line up Scott’s ante-post vouchers from one end of the Horse and Wig public house where we met to the little alley just up from Chancery Lane station in Holborn, and they would reach the door. Most of them seem to be favourites trained by Willie Mullins backed at 50/1 or 66/1 like Facile Vega in the Supreme Novice Hurdle. I don’t bet ante-post.
The days when I had 100/1 Wayward Lad for three consecutive Gold Cups, taken after his first novice hurdle win for Tony Dickinson, but which had expired the year before he first ran in the big race, are long gone. When he did, by now trained by Tony’s son Michael, he never won it. He was of course one of the Famous Five, the first five home in the 1983 Gold Cup.
Wayward Lad was third, behind Bregawn and Captain John, owned by the remarkable Michael Mouskos, Greek Cypriot hotel owner in London’s West End, and ahead of Silver Buck, owned by William Haggas’ mum Christine Feather, and finally longshot Ashley House.
This speedy multiple King George hero didn’t really get up the hill at Cheltenham, famously succumbing three years later to the flying finish of the great Irish mare Dawn Run, only the second of her sex to win the race and unique in having already won a Champion Hurdle for Paddy Mullins, Willie’s father. But sorry Jonathan, I’m doing it again – pressing the history button. Small self-admonition!
Joining Tom on the Horse and Wig panel was Joe Hill, son and one-third partner in the Lawney/Alan Hill training triptych at Aston Rowant, much in the manner of Tony, wife Monica and son Michael Dickinson those four decades ago. The Hill yard, part Rules, larger part pointing and hunter chase- oriented, was described by panel chairman Charlie Methven as one of the leading pointing yards in the country. One of the yards also whose proprietors choose not to list its equine inmates in my annual gospel, Horses In Training, they are pretty much an unknown quantity for me.
Charlie, it turned out, was a colleague in my last few years at the Daily Telegraph around the turn of the century but in the sports room office perched on floor 14 in Canary Wharf, Docklands, while I was allowed to swan around at the racecourse from my at home in Hertfordshire – another lifetime ago!
Charlie is a bit of a mentor to young Joe, who I’d seen for the first time via my Racing TV screen 48 hours before. Charlie once bought a chunk of Sunderland F.C. and was a leading light at the admirable but short-lived Sportsman newspaper, conceived after the demise of another of Charlie’s former career stop-off points, the Sporting Life.
He is part entrepreneur, part informal village squire in the most expensive part of Oxfordshire and, on the evidence of Wednesday’s performance, something of a might-have-been matinee idol. But I digress – as is the common theme of this column. After the Hill yard supplied the 14/1 winner Hilnamix at Plumpton, Joe was interviewed, and he, too, looked the part. Hilnamix would have been the mount of Tom Scu but having ridden it all three times since it moved to the Hill yard, a new rider was needed. David Bass stepped it.
Adorned for the first time, on Scu’s advice, with a visor, it romped home only after “Bassy talked to Tom in the morning and got his instructions”, said young Mr Hill. The obvious question, with Tom free of any potential sanction for betting, was “How much did you have on, Tom?” The answer was predictable – “Not a penny!” Such is the normal fate of insiders in this always frustrating game.
Tom quickly settled into his stride, helped by the odd glass of wine as his driver of many years – a big lad! – watched on.
So here we go. Cheltenham 2023 and take my word for it, however good Willie Mullins’ State Man is, he won’t see which way Constitution Hill goes in the Champion Hurdle. That’s one 4/11 winner for you – don’t say you weren’t told!
The same opening day features the Supreme, where I take Barry Connell’s Marine Nationale to win at Facile Vega’s expense. Barry used to ride some of his own horses when Tony Mullins trained most of them and I remember having a bit of a touch on one when, in Brod Munro-Wilson style almost, he won a race at one of the non-Festival meetings there.
Jonbon got most of the panel votes in the Arkle to set up the Nicky Henderson Champion Hurdle spectacular, but it could be the turn of Willie and fast-going Dysart Dynamo. As ever it’s which of the Mullins squadron will win, not whether some will.
After the excesses of putting up three in one day – multiples being a dangerous tactic as I found to my cost on the day Punjabi won the 2009 Champion. That afternoon, resting home alone recovering from a detached retina operation, I fancied runners for my life through the card so linked the Ray Tooth hero at 33/1 in a full cover each-way multiple with the other five and none finished in the frame.
You would have thought I might have done a Lucky 63 where you get double the odds for a single winner to clear the win part of the bet at least, but no, just the Heinz sufficed: the £1 each way investment of £114 as a single would have raked in around four grand! Tom, I know how you feel.
We’re getting tight for space with all this talk of current events. Therefore, let’s just be content with Editeur Du Gite for Gary Moore in the Queen Mother Champion Chase and each-way on Klassical Dream (Mullins), if he gets there, in the Stayers for the Coleman family and Mark Smith.
Among a plethora of almost guaranteed Irish handicap winners, surely it’s time for an overdue Festival success for the Skeltons’ Langer Dan in either Wednesday’s Coral Cup or Friday’s Martin Pipe.
There you are Jonathan, hardly a mention of anything further away than last week at Plumpton. Who says I’m mired in the past?
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ConstitutionHill_ChristmasHurdle2022.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-03-06 08:58:252023-03-06 08:58:26Monday Musings: The Future, via The Past…
It's less than two weeks until the tapes rise on the 2023 Cheltenham Festival and, while the Grade 1 action features the very best British and Irish (as well as a soupcon of French) National Hunt horses, it is the handicaps where the biggest scores are often made.
The potential for a windfall is created by deep fields in terms of both quantity and quality: landing on the right one is usually tough. In what follows, then, I'll attempt to focus the lens on areas of punting potential based on recent history. In plain English, I'll share some stats that might find a winner or two in the Cheltenham Festival handicaps.
As a starting point, my mate Ben Aitken (at Narrowing The Field) has kindly given permission for me to share a subset of the excellent research he's put together in a free guide he calls the 'Cheat Sheet'. You can download the full report (it's short but punchy, not unlike me!) here: Grab Ben's CheltFest Handicap Cheat Sheet >>
Ben's research covers the winners and places at the most recent five Festivals, and I'll use the same period for my contributions. I'll suffix Ben's with (NTF).
Handicap Hurdles
First off, we'll look at the handicap hurdles as a collective, excepting the Fred Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle. That leaves the Coral Cup, Pertemps Final, County Hurdle and Martin Pipe: four races times five years equals 20 handicap hurdle winners and 80 placed horses. Those wins and places were drawn from 478 individual runners.
The first thing to note is that 14 of the 20 winners were trained in Ireland, as were 47 of the placed horses. That majority of both major and minor spoils was accumulated from a minority of the total runners (70% winners, 59% placed horses, from 44% of the runners).
However, the volume of Irish representation has increased notably in just those few years as the chart below illustrates:
In 2018 and 2019, there were 34 and 35 raiders respectively; last year, there were 61. Expect another glut of Irish-trained handicap hurdle challengers in 2023.
Some features of non-juvenile handicap hurdle winners in the past five years are as follows:
- All 20 had had ten or fewer handicap hurdle runs, representing 100% of the winners (and 95% of the placed horses) from 90% of the runners (NTF)
- All 20 (100%) winners - and 91% of the placers - had last run between 18 and 98 days ago, from 87% of the runners. Obviously, those numbers are conveniently precise but a recent run or much more than three months away is not a positive. That said, the places are pretty much in line with numerical representation (NTF)
- 19/20 (95%) had no more than one prior handicap hurdle win, from 77% of the runners. 86% of the placed horses also met this criterion (NTF)
Other notable snippets include:
- 4 of 20 winners (17 placers) were making their handicap debut (20% of the winners, 21% of the places, from 16% of the runners). While 'cap debs have slightly outpunched their numbers, they've been expensive to follow, losing 45.75 points at SP (-59% ROI - ouch!). The four winners included State Man, Galopin Des Champs and Saint Roi, all subsequent G1 winners.
- 9 of 20 winners (33 placers) ran in a Grade 1 or Grade 2 (or a Grade A or B handicap) last time, out of 140 qualifiers (45% winners, 41% placers, from 29% of the runners). They returned +88 at starting price.
- Focusing only on horses that ran 123 in 'actual' G1 and G2 races last time, they accounted for 5 of 20 winners and 10 placers from just 24 runners. That's 25% of the winners and 12.5% of the placers, from just 5% of the runners. And they were wildly profitable to follow, too: +127 at SP, and each way betting returned +170 for £1 e/w on each - a total that excludes 25/1 and 33/1 6th places, which many bookmakers would have paid down to.
- 13 of 36 female runners have finished in the top five, including four winners. The four winners were good enough for +43 after paying for the 32 'win only' losers. £1 e/w at standard four place terms would have returned £60.25 with 25% of the 36 females hitting the first four. The four fifth placed females included three at 20/1 and one at 25/1.
- Two of the six UK-trained non-novice handicap hurdle winners (Ch'tibello 12/1 and William Henry 28/1) were making their first start after wind surgery from a cohort of 13 runners. The other eleven finished 10th or worse! 🤷♀️
- Only one of the 20 races (5%) was won by a horse aged nine or above, seven placing (9%). 77 (16% of) runners were of that level of maturity.
Handicap Chases
As with the handicap hurdles, there were until recently five handicap chases, one of which was a novice handicap chase. That has been usurped by the Mares' Chase - pause for your own personal interjection here - leaving a quartet comprised of the Ultima, Grand Annual, Kim Muir and Festival Plate. Here are a few handicap chase snippets, some care of (NTF).
There were 409 runners in those 20 handicap chases, no dead heats so 20 winners, and 79 placed horses.
- All 20 had finished top 3 in at least one of their previous three starts, as had 70 of 79 placed horses (100% of the winners, 89% of the placers, from 83% of the runners) (NTF)
- 19/20 had previously run at Grade 1 or Grade 2 level (95% winners, 84% placers, from 74% of the runners) (NTF)
Whereas Irish-trained horses won 14/20 in the handicap hurdle section (excluding Fred Winter), it is UK-trained horses that have won 14/20 in the handicap chase division, including a clean sweep in 2022. The six Irish-trained winners in the last five years were all single figure prices, four of them favourite and four trained by Gordon Elliot (or his in absentia proxy, Denise Foster). Irish-trained horses sent off at a double-figure price were 0/54, just three places, in the 20 races in question. (However, they did enjoy greater success in the five years prior).
Conversely, last year's quartet of UK winners were priced at 10/1, 22/1, 28/1 and 40/1!
Willie Mullins rarely saddles a handicap chaser at the Festival, the eight he has done since 2018 failing to make the frame between them.
Handicap chase win and place rates were almost identical for horses wearing headgear compared with those that were not. Likewise, largely, age was not a factor, though the 11- and 12-year-olds placed a little higher than expectation (and won three times) from 30 runners.
Horses that failed to complete last time, or were beaten 30+ lengths, won twice (10% of the winners) and placed 15 times (19% of placers) from 107 runners (26% of runners). The win component saw a circa 80% negative ROI. Oof.
Conversely, last time out winners, or horses beaten two lengths or less, won eight times and placed 26 times from 116 starters (40% of the winners, 33% of the placers, from 28% of the runners). The 169 point profit (142% ROI) at Betfair SP was due entirely to the magnificent but sadly ill-fated Croco Bay's 179/1 winning exchange return.
*
There are lies, damned lies, and Festival handicap stats, so please consider the above with caution aforethought. Plots, back class, and luck in transit are all notable imponderables in the punting puzzle. The flip side is that, typically, we'll be getting a square price about any horse we identify that hits its mark, win or place.
Good luck,
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/mullins_elliott_fists-1.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-03-02 11:32:582023-03-03 09:40:11A Data Driven Look at Cheltenham Festival Handicaps
It is almost that time! For many, the Cheltenham Festival is the highlight of not just the National Hunt season, but the whole racing year, writes Dave Renham.
In this article I will attempt to break down the facts and figures going back as far as 2008. This gives us 15 years’ worth of data to crunch, which is plenty to get our teeth into. Fifteen is also a neat number as we can easily compare 5–year periods (2008–2012; 2013–2017; 2018–2022) to see what, if anything has changed.
My main focus will be looking at the data as a whole – market factors, last time out (LTO) factors, etc. At the end I will delve briefly into Grade 1 contests only. In terms of profit and loss, I am going to use Betfair Starting Price, and take into account commission on potential profits.
Cheltenham Festival Stats for All Races
Since 2016 there have been 28 races in total at each year's Cheltenham Festival and that will be the same in 2023: four days with seven races on each day, and a rich variety of different race types and distances.
Market Factors
Let's first examine the results by market price. Although I am quoting profits/losses to BSP, the market price bands I am examining are based on Industry SPs. This is simply because we have more defined prices for this group:
The Evens to 9/4 bracket has proved the most profitable in ROI terms and, taking shorter priced runners as a whole, the market has been a pretty good guide. Combining all runners priced 6/1 or shorter we have seen 182 winners from 807 (SR 22.6%) for a small BSP loss of £7.42 (ROI –0.9%).
Despite these relatively positive figures, there are strong fluctuations year on year as the graph below shows.
As you can see, the win percentage / strike rate peaked in 2016 at 33.33%, whereas 2010, 2014 and 2017 saw percentages dip under half that figure. Eight of the years would have turned a profit, seven a loss. Hence one needs to be aware that results for runners priced 6/1 or shorter are difficult to predict for a one–off Festival, 28 races always being a small sample size. However, having said that, taking the overall data into account, one could do worse than focusing attention on this price band.
Performance of Favourites at the Cheltenham Festival (2008-2022)
A look at favourites next. Taking all favourites as a group (clear and joint favourites), they have secured 113 wins from 443 races (SR 25.5%). However, backing all of them would have returned £43.12 less than staked, equating to a loss of nearly 10 pence in the £. Before ‘binning’ favourites as a betting option though, let me share the stats comparing clear favourites with joint favourites:
There is quite a difference here! Of course, it is sometimes difficult to predict who the favourite will be pre-race which can be an issue for trying to exploit ‘market data’. However, as a general rule, the stronger the favourite the better. What I mean by that is, horses who are a much shorter price than the second horse in the betting tend to do best here at the festival. AND of course this type of favourite can be confidently predicted before the off.
For favourite fans here are a few profitable angles in relation to clear market leaders:
The best figures come from horses aged 7 to 9: we do need to be careful bracketing runners by age, in case there is back-fitting in play. However, this age bracket of runner is around the optimum age for high level jump racing and much is known about such runners. By that I mean we usually have detailed form lines for runners within this age bracket. Of course there are races at the festival where 7 to 9yos do not take part, but in the races they do, if any clear favourite is in this age band, I believe it demands close scrutiny.
We will examine Irish trainers versus UK trainers in more detail later, but Irish-trained clear favourites have done well. If we combine the clear favourite records of Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry De Bromhead, 39.1% of them won (54 wins from 138) for a profit of £27.25 (ROI +19.7%). The ‘rise’ of Irish runners will be a theme of this piece, and this can be seen when we look at a year by year breakdown of clear favourites that were trained in Ireland.
The graph illustrates a clear upwards trajectory with the last four years averaging out at just under 20 per meeting (19.5 to be precise). Essentially this means that around 70% of all races in the past four years have had an Irish-trained favourite. Compare this to the first five years (2008 to 2012) where the average was 7.4.
Last Time Out (LTO) performance
Cheltenham Festival Performance by LTO finishing position (2008-2022)
Onto last time out factors now with my initial focus being on where a horse finished in its most recent race:
Although horses that either finished 3rd LTO or 5th or worse have made a profit, this is down to big prices skewing the figures. As we can see, strike rates are low across the board, but if there is an area to concentrate on, it does seem to be last day winners. This is because they are the biggest group, have by far the best record win wise, and they have just about broken even.
Earlier I noted that LTO winners that went on to head the market at the festival have proved profitable. What about other areas?
Performance of LTO winners by Gender of Horse
I want to share some gender data with you in terms of the gender of horse. Male LTO winners make up around 90% of all such runners, but female LTO winners have comfortably outperformed their male counterparts at the festival in terms of strike rate:
194 female LTO winners have run at the festival with 31 winning. Not only that, if you had backed all of them ‘blind’ they would have secured you a profit of £116.24 (ROI 59.2%). If sticking to solely mixed sex races (races open to both sexes) the stats, albeit from a small sample, are even more impressive: 13 wins from 69 (SR 18.8%) for a profit of £116.14 (ROI +168.3%). Indeed, looking at the last three festivals (2020, 2021 and 2022) LTO winning female horses running in mixed sex races have won 8 races from just 20 runners!
Performance of LTO winners by LTO Race Class
Time to examine whether the class of race that the horse won last time out makes a difference... and it certainly seems to!
Horses that won a Grade 1 contest LTO have scored close to one race in every four which is impressive. Backing all runners would have yielded a good profit also of over 22p in the £. Horses winning LTO in either Grade 2, 3 or Listed company have very similar strike rates, but it is Listed LTO winners who have created the best profit (£49.48 returning 41p in the £).
LTO winners outside Graded and Listed company have by far the poorest strike rate as you would expect. They have incurred losses of £116.97 (ROI -8.3%) over the period of study. LTO winners outside Graded and Listed company have not surprisingly struggled even more when the race at Cheltenham is a Graded one – in these races their record reads 50 wins from 957 (SR 5.2%) for a loss of £149.46 (ROI -15.6%). Losses have been steepest in Grade 1 contests with your £1 bet returning on average 79p (loss of 21p in the £).
Performance of LTO winners by LTO Course
The next question I will try and address is, does the track at which the horse ran LTO make a difference? One might expect that horses that ran at a top track last time would outperform those that didn’t. The table below looks at any course that has sent 75 or more runners next time out to the Cheltenham Festival. I have ordered it by win strike rate:
What immediately resonates is the record of Irish tracks: the top four in the list are all Irish tracks and runners from all four (Thurles, Leopardstown, Naas and Navan) have secured decent profits at the festival to BSP. Irish tracks also take positions 6 and 7, giving them six of the first seven spots in the list. Focusing on those top four courses, here is win strike rate breakdown by 5-year groups:
The last decade has seen a notable uptick in performance which mirrors the type of pattern we saw earlier in terms of the increasing number of Irish runners that have started clear favourite. In that favourite data, the years 2008 to 2012 saw the smallest market leader numbers by some margin. Of course, we know about the dominance of Irish winners at recent Festivals but there is still plenty on which to chew in relation to possible value edges.
Before moving on, any system punters out there may want to consider an angle based on last time out runners from these four Irish tracks. It combines some positives we have already noted and is as follows:
LTO run at Leopardstown, Naas, Navan or Thurles
LTO run in Graded / Listed Race
Finished in first three LTO
The results were:
Ten of the 15 years would have yielded a profit, and a very good one in nine of those ten positive renewals. Three years made small losses, two years quite big losses.
Sceptics will naturally be highlighting the fact that this system idea is back-fitted, and to a great extent they would be right. However, the rules are simple, logical, and there are not many of them, all of which is positive from a system building perspective.
I am definitely not advocating that this system is one that punters should use ‘blind’ at the 2023 festival, but it may offer a potential starting point, to at least give you a pool of runners to consider. Also, for readers with little time to study form, I am confident there are plenty of systems around that are less likely to produce a profit at the Festival than this one.
Irish runners versus UK runners
We have already noted some positives connected with Irish runners or those that raced in Ireland last time. It goes without saying that the vast majority of horses racing at Cheltenham that raced in Ireland last time out would have been from Irish stables; in fact 97% of them were. Hence there definitely has been a strong Irish bias.
Below is a breakdown of the records of all UK trainers versus all Irish trainers:
Looking at this, we can the Irish bias in all its glory. Irish-trained runners have more than twice the strike rate of their counterparts trained in UK. Moreover, they've enjoyed a 55p in the £ difference in their returns, and a clear differential between the A/E indices.
In recent years their stranglehold has got stronger and stronger. Below shows the number of Irish wins by 5-year groups:
These figures are skewed inasmuch as the last five years have seen a big increase in the number of Irish horses travelling across. However, the win strike rate for Irish runners in the five years from 2008 to 2012 was 6.8%, whereas in the past five years (2018 to 2022) it has been 9.7%. So the Irish are sending more runners than they did more than a decade ago, and are winning on average more often. That, obviously, is a potent combination.
Indeed, Irish runners have outperformed UK runners in terms of win strike rate in the last ten festivals starting from 2013 as the graph below neatly illustrates.
The UK runners did close the gap in 2022, after a dreadful 2021. Will they be able to get any closer this year? Only time will tell, but you have to expect the Irish to come out on top overall once more.
Grade 1 Races
For the final segment of this article I want to have a brief look at Grade 1 races. These races comprise 50% of the 28 Festival contests and, in the last 15 years, they have accounted for roughly the same percentage of all the Festival contests (some of the newer races being upgraded during the review period).
The betting market comes under the spotlight first.
Market Factors in Cheltenham Festival Grade 1 Races
I have split the prices as I did earlier in the article and here are the Grade 1 only figures:
The data show a poor record for odds-on runners, but in general short- to mid-range prices do quite well. The cut off price looks to be at 14/1 – at this price and bigger Grade 1 runners have performed poorly. Strike rates are below what is the 14/1+ norm for all National Hunt races and losses have been significant.
If we look at market position data instead, clear favourites in Grade 1 races have just edged into profit, albeit by only £6.77 (ROI +3.6%); backing ALL runners in the top four in the betting would have yielded a profit of £55.24 (ROI +6.8%).
LTO performance in Cheltenham Festival Grade 1 Races
One group of runners to avoid in Grade 1 races seems to be those that ran relatively modestly or poorly last time out. Horses that finished 5th or worse on their prep run have accounted for just eight winners from 282 runners (SR 2.8%) for a hefty BSP loss of £129.01 (ROI -45.8%). Meanwhile, last day winners have secured 141 wins from 1200 runners (SR 11.8%). They, too, made a loss but nowhere near as severe, at -£50.53 (ROI -4.2%).
LTO Race Class
A look next at race class on their previous start (all Cheltenham Grade 1 runners).
There is a sliding scale of strike rates as you would expect. Horses that raced outside Graded/Listed company have a poor record.
If we focus only on LTO winners, it is interesting that each LTO Graded category made a small individual profit to BSP, as did those who won a Listed contest.
LTO course
In terms of the course Grade 1 Cheltenham Festival entries ran at last time, Irish courses have again outperformed UK ones. This time around I have grouped all courses in each country for the comparison:
It is no surprise to see horses that ran in Ireland LTO coming out on top in terms of strike rate, returns and A/E indices. There is, however, one Irish course where caution might be advised, and that is Gowran Park. Just 2 winners from 90 runners in the last 15 years prepped there, with losses amounting to over 88p in the £.
Gender of Horse (LTO winners only)
We saw earlier that LTO winners that were female had a better strike rate than males, as well as proving profitable. Focusing on Grade 1 races only, this pattern is replicated once more:
A strike rate of close to 1 in 5 is excellent and female LTO winners have secured a profit in Grade 1 races of £66.94 (ROI +85.8%). Hence any female running this year at Cheltenham who won last time out might be a horse to consider as a betting opportunity.
Irish runners versus UK runners
It is abundantly clear from what we have seen to date that, in general, Irish-trained runners outperform those trained in the UK at the Cheltenham Festival. From the LTO course (by country) figures we can see that this is also the case in Grade 1 races (as most of the runners that ran in Ireland last time are Irish-based). What I would like to share is the number of Irish wins in Grade 1 races broken down by year:
The last ten years (from 2013 onwards) have seen Irish runners dominate these events more and more. Indeed, in the last two years we have witnessed double figure victories and, considering there were only 14 Grade 1 races in each of 2021 and 2022, this is mightily impressive (or concerning, if you're a British-based racing administrator, trainer or owner). To spell it out, in the most recent two Cheltenham Festivals, Irish runners have secured 22 wins compared with just six for the UK.
Key Takeaways
Before winding down, here are some of the key stats I suggest you keep in mind:
The betting market is a good guide. Clear favourites are reasonable value in all races including Grade 1 contests. Focusing attention on horses priced 6/1 or shorter should give a sporting chance of making a profit. In Grade 1 races avoiding horses priced 14/1 or bigger will usually save you some cash.
Irish runners are likely to outperform their UK counterparts. This is especially probable in Grade 1 races. The trainers Henry de Bromhead, Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins have good records with favourites.
Female horses have a good record when following up a win last time. This is true even in Grade 1 contests.
A prep run at Leopardstown, Naas, Navan or Thurles has provided good profits over the past 15 years.
Last time out Grade 1 winners are generally decent value.
In Grade 1 races it looks best to avoid horses that finished 5th or worse in their final prep.
Hopefully this article has offered some good general guidance to follow, with the hope that it will find a winner or two along the way. This is my last article before Cheltenham, so good luck, and I'll see you on the other side with some early thoughts for the 2023 flat campaign!
- Dave R
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CheltenhamFestival_JLT_2019.jpg319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-02-27 17:08:462023-02-28 14:02:38Cheltenham Festival: The 15 year View
It would appear that since my last blog post about a fortnight ago, we haven't had a drop of rain worth mentioning around here in the Midlands and indeed, small fields have really been a pain in the backside for bookmakers during the latter half of February, writes David Massey. It is rare for us not to go to a meeting that we've scheduled in but Hereford on Sunday got the push after we realised there were four four-horse events on the card. I'm sure there are connections out there delighted with the dry weather for their good-ground horses but it's not much use to punters or bookmakers, and we decided a day on the sofa rather than freezing us whatsits off trying to get the odds-on pokes beaten made more appeal.
I have been out since we last conversed, though, with a couple of visits to Warwick, on Kingmaker Day and then for their in-for-a-fiver day last Friday. Kingmaker Day was decent business and one of our regular bigger punters turned up. Sadly for us, he was in good form, having £200 on Mr Freedom at 7s to win the handicap hurdle and another £400 on Imperial Alex, but we did still win on the day.
The Jonbon match for the Kingmaker itself saw more action in the race than it did beforehand, although needless to say the whole crowd had had their fiver on Calico to cause an upset. (I didn't hear of one single punter willing to take the 1-14 available, out of interest). With five to jump it did look like Calico was going to give them all something to cheer about, but the pantomime boos as Jonbon went past the post in first place were much more about people's pockets than any hatred towards Nicky's star chaser.
For the record, as I was working on the rails and saw Jonbon go down to post, I thought I'd seen him fitter and that he'd come on for the run. He's still the one to beat in the Arkle, for my money.
The most comical conversation of the afternoon took place not on my joint, but next door with Colin, working for Martyn Of Leicester. A few of the books bet "win only" on the novice hurdle that followed the Kingmaker as the each-way was shocking business (plenty of those that bet each-way were well overbroke on the places, come racing) but Colin was each-way. Up comes a lady punter to him with her tenner.
"Are you betting each-way on this race?" she asks him.
"Indeed I am", replies Colin.
"Can I have five pounds on number four then, please?"
"Each-way?"
"No, win."
Brilliant. I could barely suppress my laughter and Colin's face told its own story of bemusement. He just shook his head, and carried on...
In the middle of the course one of those Invades student gigs was going on. You might have seen these on your travels. If not, have a Google and you'll see what they're about. Generally speaking I'm all for them, although as yet I've not had to work in the middle of one of them, which is what my friends at S&D Bookmakers did on the day. [They look like a lot of fun and, unlike concert nights, the students are actually having a bet! - Ed.]
4 out of 5 bets you take are on debit card; whilst us oldsters still like the feel of cash in our wallet, it's all on card with the kids these days. Some bookmakers still don't take card, and I do think they'll have to move with the times, or miss out. Yes, it takes a few seconds longer and sometimes they can be a pain when you're busy, but ultimately the future lies that way, and I think you're better getting with the program now rather than later.
Anyway, we leave Warwick that day with the party in full swing, Fatboy Slim's "Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat" blasting in our ears. Eat, Sleep, Race, Repeat, more like. In the car park we bump into the S&D lot; they look utterly exhausted. "I've never worked so hard to take the money we have", says Rob, ashen-faced and in need of two paracetamol. "Fiver win, card. Fiver win, card. Fiver win, card. Does nobody carry cash any more?" Not under 25 they don't, Rob.
Warwick's Fiver Friday, timed to coincide with half term for maximum effect, usually draws a good family crowd, and last Friday was no exception. You know what the day will be like, a lot of novice punters there for a day out with the kids, so expect small money but plenty of it. Our big punter turns up again, too, and again he finds a winner, having £400 on Pikar. But before that, we have the farce that is the first to sort out.
You may have seen the race. Half the field go one side of a set of railings down the back and the other half go the other side. Who has taken the wrong course? It would appear there's going to be some sorting out to do in the Stewards room afterwards and, of course, that means we can't pay out.
The first thing to note is how long it took to actually call the enquiry. You'd have imagined the moment they went past the post that the "bing-bong" would sound, but no, it took a good three minutes for them to actually announce the enquiry, during which everyone was as wise as each other as to what was happening. We are telling punters to hold on to their tickets, they are (rightly, at the time) telling us no enquiry has been called, and whilst it isn't a tense situation by any means, it's one that could have been easily diffused. In the end, the result is allowed to stand, and we can finally get paid out and crack on with the next.
The rest of the day passes without incident, until we get to race 6. One woman, the worse for a beverage or two, has a couple of bets on the race and I'm fairly sure, post-race, that she's backed the winner. However, nobody picks up and after the last, we get packed up and are ready to go. Just as we are about to leave, a bloke and his wife come up to me with half a ticket.
"I think this has won, but she's torn the ticket in half."
It is indeed the winning ticket from race 6. Well, half of it. It's been torn from top to bottom. As this isn't the original punter, I'm a little suspicious.
"I don't suppose you have the other half, do you?"
"She says she's lost it."
Leaving aside why the hell you'd rip up a winning ticket, I have a feeling if I pay this, the other half could mysteriously appear, get sent to Late Pay for payment (you can do this, have a look on the back of your docket next time you have a bet at the races) and we'll end up paying twice. I politely decline to pay, suggest they have a good look through their pockets and send it in to Late Pay once they've found the other half.
You do get the odd punter try it on, but less so on course than in the shops. I remember working for Stanley Racing back in the day and had a Polish bloke and his mate, who we nicknamed Jaws (built like said character from the Bond movies) who was always trying something. He once came rushing up to the counter for a dog race shouting "trap 6, favourite, trap 6" as they were going in the boxes. I ask him does he want trap 6 on the slip, or the unnamed favourite? "Trap 6, six!" he barks back at me. I duly write trap 6 on the slip. In the meantime, the jollies have flipped and the one dog is now favourite, not the six. The red bolts out and makes all.
Up comes our man. "Favourite, favourite!" he shouts, waving his slip at me. I know what he is doing. "You said trap 6, and that's lost.", is my reply. He looks at me, and calmly walks out. Thinking I've had a result and there's no trouble, I get back to settling the bets. However, thirty seconds later they return. Jaws has picked up next door's wheelie bin and launches it at the bandit screen. It cracks but holds. Even more remarkably, the pair just stand there like lemons whilst I call the coppers, who come and take them for a free ride in the back of their car. But not before I tell them they're barred.
Back to the present, and I've just seen the weather forecast for this week. Drier than a Bedouin's flip-flops. Snow for Cheltenham a possibility, I'm told. Don't be packing the big coat away just yet, boys and girls. See you all at Prestbury in a couple of weeks, and the best of luck to you.
- DM
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jonbon_Kingmaker_Warwick2023.png319830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2023-02-27 11:34:102023-02-27 11:34:10Roving Reports: Kingmaker for a Day
Much has been written and argued about concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s attempts to shortcut its way into top-level international sport, writes Tony Stafford. First golf, where millions of dollars were paid several years ago to a few selected stars to entice them into a tournament where, if winning, they would only have added a minimal amount to their guaranteed pot. The only requirement for them was to turn up and smile – all the way to the bank.
That has continued with their own lavishly endowed tour which has caused such a personal rift between those like Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter, who have broken away, and former friends Rory McIIroy and Tiger Woods, die-hard stalwarts of the existing PGA programme.
Then it was football – and, with the spotlight of the World Cup last autumn, their own footballers were on hand and even won a match – against champions Argentina no less! – to kick off their campaign before the competition eventually proved too hot. That their country’s football administrators could then manage to seduce Cristiano Ronaldo to abandon his lucrative Manchester United contract for one of infinitely greater instant wealth, even at the age of 38, to join their best domestic team, further emphasised their seriousness.
Horse racing has always been a focus for Saudi owners. Prince Khalid Abdullah, via his Juddmonte Farm breeding operation, had been a serious challenger in world racing both to the Maktoum family from Dubai and Coolmore for much of the past fifty years until his death in 2021.
Two decades earlier, two more Saudi Princes, the brothers Fahd and Ahmed Bin Salman, both had massive international strings. Fahd, the elder by a few years, won the Derby with Generous and, soon after, Ahmed, via the vehicle of his Thoroughbred Corporation, also won that Classic with Oath, as well as, in the US, four consecutive Triple Crown races, although bizarrely not managing to complete the Triple Crown itself.
I was fortunate to be involved with the TC throughout that entire period, and it was almost as much a shock to me as to the family and the country when both princes died in their 40’s, Ahmed a year after his brother. Their status in the country was immense, fittingly as sons of Prince Salman, now King Salman, who acceded to the country’s throne in 2015 and who remains its Head of State.
In those days, racing at their home track in Janadriya, and in the summer at Taif, where the temperature is much cooler than in the capital, was generally restricted to local owners. The horses raced around a very basic track, adjacent to which the smaller trainers and their owners would sit in the stables close to their horses for many hours and at leisure formulate their plans.
Then, as the decade of the 2010’s proceeded, news came of a big new racetrack, the King Abdulaziz Racecourse, in the same part of town. In 2020, the first running of the Saudi Cup was scheduled, a tactically astute four weeks before the Dubai World Cup at Meydan. Saudis regard the Maktoum-family emirate of Dubai, and the other Emirates for that matter, as Johnny Come Latelys and. while they are prosperous enough, the wealth in Saudi is, as was described to me when I first joined the TC, “a bottomless pit”. Funny how some phrases stay with you!
Consequently, the decision for Saudi Arabian horse racing massively to outbid and therefore upstage the Dubai World Cup and then get in ahead of it was probably only to be expected. Now on Saturday, the fourth running of the Saudi Cup, a 10-furlong race on the dirt, carried a total prize pool of £16 million and a first prize in excess of £8 million.
As with the golf and soccer, it was money no object and such distortion surely, one might think, must have the potential of causing a re-drawing of the world record for prizemoney for any horse in the history of the sport.
The leader up to Saturday morning was the wonderful Australian racemare Winx, on a final figure of £14,564,743 from 29 wins in 32 races for trainer Chris Waller until her retirement in 2019 for the breeding shed. She holds the record, from Bob Baffert’s Arrogate, winner of the Dubai World Cup for Prince Khalid. Japan’s Almond Eye, another great mare, is third, both horses having picked up more than £13 million.
Although the list I used does not include him, another of the world’s greatest money-accumulators was topically boosting his tally yesterday in Hong Kong. Preferred in the market on the Citi Hong Kong Gold Cup, the seven-year-old gelding Golden Sixty still recorded his 24th victory in 28 starts at Sha Tin, beating the 1-2 favourite, the two years younger Romantic Warrior, by a head. The 700-odd grand for this latest triumph actually puts him fourth on the overall list at £13,077,966.
It took Winx and Golden Sixty many years of endeavour to reach their massive cash accumulations. The Saudi riches will no doubt one day distort the record books, but despite Bob Baffert’s best efforts, it hasn’t happened yet.
On Saturday, Baffert brought a formidable double challenge to Riyadh. He supplied the Saudi Cup’s favourite in Taiba, a four-year-old with four wins back home in California, three at Grade 1 level. Despite having big-race specialist Mike Smith on board, Taiba could finish only ninth.
That was a long way behind the other Baffert runner, Country Grammer, now a six-year-old and runner-up in this race 12 months ago. It was a shock when he failed to beat locally trained Emblem Road last year but then, with Frankie Dettori drafted in, he collected the marginally (albeit almost £3 million) less Dubai World Cup a month later.
Dettori, as we know, is on his Let’s Get In As Much Cash As We Can In My Last Year’s Riding World TourTM and he stopped off for Christmas in California to win a Grade 2 on Country Grammer as the gelding’s prep for Saturday. Lo and behold though, the Frankie magic was in vain as the Japanese-trained Panthalassa, also a six-year-old, made every yard at 16/1 for trainer Yoshita Yahogi and rider Y Yoshida.
I spoke of distortion: If Country Grammer had picked up £8 million plus rather than a measly £2.91 million, he would have sailed a full £2 million past Winx. He can make up the deficit by winning the £5 million plus World Cup, so while it would be nice for Frankie to have another little payday to bolster his pension fund, let’s hope Winx can stay ahead of the pack for one more year at least.
There were several handsomely rewarded UK recipients of the Saudi largesse on the undercard. Unsurprisingly, they were headed by the Gosdens, winners of the second Saudi Cup with Mishriff, who as a result remains in the top ten money-earners narrowly ahead of Prince Khalid Abdullah’s great champion, Enable, whom John Gosden also trained. They picked up the £750k first prize in the Neon Turf Cup, Mostahdaf winning by seven lengths from Dubai Future, trained for Godolphin by Saeed bin Suroor.
While the Gosdens and Dettori are hardly unacquainted at picking up sackloads of lolly, one trainer more than happy to take just a small portion of the day’s rewards was Ian Williams.
He ran recent Dubai Carnival handicap scorer Enemy in the £1.25 million to the winner Longines Red Sea Turf Handicap over 1m7f. As his horse came to challenge under Richard Kingscote, for at least a furlong the trainer thought the unthinkable: “We’re going to win!”, but as in the big race later, the Japanese front-runner kept front running to the line and beyond.
Still, the consolation prize for second was a cool £440k for owners Tracey Bell and Caroline Lyons (from which Williams and Kingscote will both earn a nice percentage). Enemy has already been accepted for the Dubai Gold Cup on World Cup night and must be a prime contender, while the intended Melbourne Cup challenge, aborted when the horse lost his form last summer, may well be on. “We have to thank Ben Brain for that as he sorted out Enemy’s issues with his customary magic touch,” said Williams.
Waking up to reality yesterday, he was looking forward to watching his team Manchester United at the hotel in the Carabao Cup Final before going off to see that other spectacle, the big fight between Tommy Fury and Jake Paul, which is the preferred venue to end Saudi Cup weekend. Not much fun this racehorse training lark, is it Ian?
Less rewarding, sadly, was William Knight’s trip with his money-spinner Sir Busker, set up nicely with a run around Lingfield under big-race rider Ryan Moore, but after starting slowly in Mostahdaf’s race, never got in a blow. Most races on Saturday favoured horses away in the forefront and Sir Busker therefore had everything against him from the start. There will be other days for him, but few with the sort of money that might have been coming his way if things had gone to plan.
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