Tag Archive for: Cheltenham Festival

Monday Musings: We’re Ready

/in /by

The days are getting appreciably longer, writes Tony Stafford. We’ve already snatched back three and a half hours of daylight from the miserly spans of midwinter, and Cheltenham starts tomorrow. In other words, 2026 begins now.

Two septuagenarians, Messrs Henderson and Mullins, have for decades been the major forces at the meeting, and neither is ready to lie down as the opening day entries show, but such as Dan Skelton, Ben Pauling and Olly Murphy on this side of the Irish Sea, and grittily determined Gordon Elliott, Willie’s Irish shadow for the past decade and more, as well as Gavin Cromwell and Henry de Bromhead, will be poised if either drops off from their usual lofty excellence.

Not everything will be the same. For the first time since 2011, Henderson will not be represented in the Champion Hurdle, a race he has won nine times. In the competitive absence of Group-seeking flat-minded nine-year-old Constitution Hill and injured Sir Gino, he can instead watch with pride the former’s gracing of the paddock before the race we thought he might win three or even four times before injury and a strange later aversion to jumping at racing speed took over.

Mullins has three chances, principally with the mare Lossiemouth, backed over the past few days into favouritism. Less obvious are Poniros, last year’s shock Triumph Hurdle winner, and Anzadam, runner-up in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle to Golden Ace late last year.

Two more from Ireland, the drifting third-favourite and Lossiemouth last-time humbler Brighterdaysahead (Gordon), and Workahead (Henry). Maybe this 66/1 shot isn’t a feasible contender but surely Henry De Bromhead is entitled to have another crack having won the race both in 2021 and the following year with Honeysuckle.

That great course specialist, along with now-retired Rachael Blackmore, came back to win the Mares’ race as a career finale in 2023, wisely side-stepping Constitution Hill when Nicky’s phenomenon was at his peak.

It wasn’t feasible either we thought before Jeremy Scott’s Golden Ace pounced last year following Constitution Hill’s early exit and most crucially State Man’s last flight fall when Mullins’ 2024 hero looked certain to follow up. He too is missing this year through injury.

We’ve been waiting for something to emerge from where I knew not, so with all the trials and tribulations out of the way, we’re left with The New Lion, worthy, dependable, much in the way of his trainer Dan Skelton, set for a final tally of more than £4 million for the season.

The New Lion, winner of the Turners novice hurdle over 2m5f last year, could have been returning with a faultless career record, but it’s now five from six following his being the second fall guy (along with Constitution Hill) in Golden Ace’s Newcastle success, secured at another massive price.

Skelton’s big hope appeared to have the race won on his first start since last March when falling late on, leaving Golden Ace to hold off Mullins’ Anzadam. The New Lion took his time to assert in what ended up a penalty kick on Trials Day at Cheltenham, but he comes here with the right profile. Brighterdaysahead’s dominant display against Lossiemouth at the Dublin Racing Festival, it seems, hasn’t been taken seriously by the market, presumably because of her capitulation last March.

So, the three most powerful stables in the two countries this season take centre stage. Their records for the campaign domestically are remarkably similar, numerically and in money terms. Skelton’s inexorable rise to a first trainer’s championship cannot be cheated this time, even if Mullins takes all the races he contests this week, has a clean sweep of the ten paying positions in the Grand National, and nicks all the other big prizes there and at Ayr and Sandown next month.

Skelton is on £3,462k, a full £3,160k more than Mullins. Even if Willie matches last year’s four Cheltenham daily takeaways of respectively £267k, £245k, £243k and a finishing £475k – which didn’t include the Gold Cup – that would ‘only’ amount to £1,230k. I doubt Dan will be heading off on holiday over the last seven weeks of the season either.

I love looking at stats in my customary now and again mode. Which of Mullins and Elliott do you think leads the prizemoney table in Ireland? As has often been the case at this stage, and sometimes even later, it’s Elliott. It’s taken 305 individual horses and 1,002 runs, 164 of them winners, to earn €4,340k. Mullins, much more sparing with runs from his 274 individual horses, has won 161 of 661, so 500 losers for €3,963K. I wonder how many of them were odds-on [55 odds-on losers from 127 - Ed.]

Over the last fortnight Mullins has won with 13 of 35 runners, supplying in that time the same number of odds-on shots. Tomorrow, between them, Mullins and Elliott have almost half the 45 Irish-trained runners on the opening day card. The home team has 67, with Henderson striking off early with favourite Old Park Star (Supreme) against Mullins’ Mighty Park (JP McManus), then Lulamba close in the market against Willie’s favourite and last year’s Supreme winner Kopek Des Bordes in the Arkle, with another mare Kargese as the Irishman’s back-up in a terrific seven-horse line-up.

Gary and Josh Moore were the stars of Saturday’s Sandown card, and their Hansard is worthy of his place against better-publicised opponents. Add Sam Thomas’s Steel Ally, who saw off Ben Pauling’s candidate and reopposing Mambonumberfive when they met at Kempton, and it’s a heady mix.

Lulamba won the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury despite showing obvious signs of inexperience and that was never the case with Steel Ally at Kempton. In three runs over fences, he has won with increasing facility each time and has the sexiest of French jumping pedigrees being by Doctor Dino out of a mare by Martaline. At 12/1, he’s worth a second look.

When I peeped at the Racing Post last Wednesday to check I was still alive, I was described as Tony Stafford – former Daily Telegraph tipster, or was it journalist? My memory! Anyway, I am still here, and reckon that in the first race, reviving my old tipster role, I’m looking for Elliott to disappoint both Henderson and Mullins with El Cairos.

With Gary and Josh Moore last season, he did very well when amateur-ridden by then owner David Maxwell and was sold at the owner’s dispersal for £410k. The Moores will not have been surprised by the talent he is showing over hurdles, stumbling and falling unluckily on the run-in when in the lead on debut and then an easy winner from a Mullins horse last time. No doubt Gary wishes he still had him to train.

For a value bet number three, let’s go with Faye Bramley’s Winston Junior – no not named after Sir Keir – winner of his latest of three runs at Ascot in scintillating front-running style. His owners might give a clue as to why he’s 8/1 in a massive field for what deserves forever to be known as just the Fred Winter, despite whoever adds their name to it.

The trio of connections – Ronnie Bartlett, Justin Carthy (JP’s mate) and Mrs Paul Shanahan (and her husband of course) – know how to line up a winner from whichever yard their horses happen to run.

Just as I’d stopped looking, a name from a year or so ago jumped out at me. Walking On Air began life in the Nicky Henderson stable, running very well in bumpers in the colours of Mrs Doreen Tabor. He didn’t always live up to the promise of those early days and, since late in 2024, various owner combinations including Justin Carthy and Mrs Shanahan have been alongside his name.

Now it’s the Cheeky Pups and again trainer Faye Bramley, a protégé of AP McCoy’s, who trains him. The nine-year-old’s last run was a good third to Geegeez’ Dartmoor Pirate in the Great Yorkshire Chase at Doncaster last month.

I mentioned top French breeding earlier. Walking On Air’s pedigree takes some beating. He’s by Michael Tabor’s Derby runner-up, the wonderful jumps sire Walk in The Park, out of his smart long-distance mare Refinement. It’s 18 years since I was alongside Harry Taylor in the Cheltenham paddock watching on the big screen as Refinement came to the line just in front in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle.

Just before the line, I turned to Harry and said, “She’s won!”.

Eyes still on the screen, Harry said, “She hasn’t!” and she hadn’t, letting Whiteoak get back by a short head. She had one more run, another second place for Jonjo O’Neill and AP McCoy in Ireland, and then retired.

I asked Michael if she would go to stud. “Me send a jump mare to stud? How f…ing old would I be before she got a runner?” Well, Michael did relent and Refinement has bred four nice jumps winners including Walking On Air. A 12/1 shot for tomorrow and also from the Bramley yard, he can make it a memorable afternoon for his young trainer.

- TS

LRC Cheltenham Preview Night 2026

/in , /by

It was with the usual excitement that I headed west from Hackney to the monied enclaves of Kensington for an evening of Cheltenham chat with a panel of bona fide experts at the London Racing Club's annual Cheltenham Festival Preview night.

The panel was comprised of Racing TV's 'Road to Cheltenham' voice, Lydia Hislop (LH); stats, trends and form judge, Matt Tombs (MT); BetVictor rep and co-host of Sky Sports Racing's Friday night show, Sam Boswell (SB); with LRC President and Racing Post chief correspondent Lee Mottershead (LM) doing the steering.

Below is my impression of their thoughts, hopefully faithfully reproduced.

[NB Since the evening a few non-runners have emerged - note those as you scan through...]

Tuesday

Supreme

LH – Strong Supreme. It might be that Willie Mullins horses step forward notably here?

Will be strongly run race. Mighty Park has a bit to prove.

Talk The Talk jumped better at DRF but quicker ground may put hurdling under pressure – jumping improving, made up ground off slow pace impressively.

MT – Old Park Star most likely winner but his price is tight enough.

Think TTT should run in Turners.

Against El Cairos.

Sober Glory interesting but might need to lead. Leader d’Allier is a Townend connection. He could be value.

So too Idaho Sun, who beat Mydaddypaddy on merit in Formby. Strongly run race should suit, each-way price.

SB – OPS will be taken on by bookmakers on the day. Idaho Sun is the wise guy horse – each-way angle into the race.

Arkle

SB – Kopek des Bordes worst result of the week right now, don’t really get the weakness of Lulamba.

MT – Once raced horses can win the Arkle. 2/8 this century and two others were no-hopers. Irish Arkle may have left a mark on Kargese / Romeo Coolio.

LH – Very deep Arkle. Lulamba very good but vulnerable. Which are likely to be QMCC contenders next year? KdB, maybe Kargese. But Lulamba / Romeo Coolio look more like King George types. Prefer KdB.

LM – If there was still a 2m4f G1, Lulamba / Romeo Coolio would be in there. So the race changes seem to be working.

Champion Hurdle

LH – Lossiemouth might go this way and could wear cheekpieces if she does (acc. to Rich Ricci). Brighterdaysahead & Lossiemouth might have had hard races at DRF (93% finishing speed). Golden Ace looks sure to run her race.

SB – The New Lion won’t be favourite on the day if Lossie runs. Not sure about his jumping at championship speed. Poniros might be the angle.

MT – Not sure Lossie will run. Don’t think she looks happy in fast run 2m. Want to take on TNL, unknown quantity. Opposable at the price. Backed BDA but cooled a bit, hard race LTO. Might have a stab at Alexei at big price.

Tuesday Handicaps

LH – "Iroko wins the Ultima". Think he’s got a very strong chance.

SB – Western Junior playable for the Fred Winter if landing there.

Wednesday

Queen Mother Champion Chase

LH – Big prices: Libberty Hunter and Only By Night if they go this way. Non-runner no bet (NRNB).

MT – Jonbon probably not running in QMCC. Cannot have L'eau du Sed or Il Etait Temps. Freshness angle totally overplayed with the former. In the 'without Majborough' market, Quilixios goes well fresh.

SB – Majborough might be a be tricky watch at odds-on. Have a look at the 'without' market at the big prices.

Turners

MT – Mighty Park should maybe come here because easier to win Turners off one run. Didn’t hit the line that hard on his debut. This race is perfect for Talk The Talk; if not TTT, King Rasko Grey and/or Skylight Hustle. Mullins first string often wins, but his other runners have never won this race.

LH– Mighty Park never been under pressure at a hurdle, so this might be the race for him. Quite keen on No Drama This End and prefer Skylight Hustel over Ballyfad. But no strong view.

SB – Feel like No Drama This End might drift on the day, seems to be a weakness around Paul Nicholls' horses these days. Doctor Steinberg: traders thought he’d come here rather than Albert Bartlett.

Brown Advisory

SB – Final Demand looks short against The Big Westerner. Wendigo might be nap of the meeting. Tactically made for this race, think he’s a cracking horse.

LH – Not attracted by Final Demand. Can’t have Romeo Coolio at 3m1f. This race is now ½f further and over one more fence. Koktail Divin won’t stay. Like The Big Westerner ("really good chance") and Wendigo from last year’s Albert Bartlett.

MT – Not Final Demand. WPM not happy with him all season apparently. Don’t like headgear / Kaid d’Authie. Western Fold could run well on decent ground but he’s vulnerable to an improver. Oscar’s Brother a possible, but agree that The Big Westerner & Wendigo look value.

Cross Country

MT – Favori de Champdou looks good, won Trials Day race and goes on any ground. Stumptown might still have his hard Velka Pardubicka run in his legs. Favori de Champdou looks the most likely winner of a handicap all week.

Other races

LH – Grand Annual– Henry de Bromhead (HdB) Inthepocket and possibly Downmexicoway. Jazzy Matty could defend his crown though repeat winners are rare. Libberty Hunter also on the radar.

SB – Champion Bumper – Bass Huntermight run well, and maybe Wilde's Legacy.

Thursday

Mares' Hurdle

SB – Lossiemouth will be very short if she comes here. Wodhooh short if Lossie goes Champion Hurdle.

LH – Jade de Grugy is the bet NRNB. Only runs here if Lossie goes CH. Comparable form to Wodhooh. Lossie was a bit flat in the Irish Champion Hurdle last time.

MT – Back Jade de Grugy NRNB here andfor the Mares' Chase. Gordon Elliott apparently makes Wodhooh his nap of the meeting.

Stayers’ Hurdle

LH – Fascinating race. Teahupoo too short but no worries re ground. Honesty Policy progressive but long walk form not great; Kabral du Mathan may have too much pace for 3m. Bob Olinger still has a chance even aged 11: Cheltenham and drying ground will suit. Coming round to Ma Shantou. Cannot have Ballyburn for anything: he just seems out of love with the game.

MT – Largely agree with LH. Want to take on the old guard with three young guns. Not keen on Kabral du Mathan. Honesty Policy has achieved a lot in a short time – has star potential but missed his prep race (Boyne Hurdle). Also warming to Ma Shantou, who’s still a touch of value for the Paisley Park yard of Emma Lavelle.

SB – Been too dismissive of Ma Shantou who looks playable e/w. Bob O will be thereabouts again.

Ryanair

LH – Think Fact To File runs here and Gaelic Warrior goes Gold Cup. Really impressed with FtF in the Irish Gold Cup. Whichever of FtF/GW turns up here probably wins. Banbridge has a chance but not of the calibre of FtF/GW.

MT – Banbridge clear pick behind FtF/GW. Banbridge could be e/w against the top of the market.

Other races

SB – Dawn Run Mares' Novices Hurdle – Old School Outlaw negative vibes but Gordon Elliott adamant she's fine. Bambino Fever could end up a bit of a punter banker for Thursday. La Conquiere interesting e/w at a big price.

LH – Charme de Faust probably coming here. Don’t see the argument for Bambino Fever to beat Old School Outlaw after their run last time. Good race, other players in here. OSO if trainer is happy with her.

Jack Richards

LH - Meetmebythesea “best bet of the meeting”. Trainer Ben Pauling didn’t deny he has a great chance.

MT – Regent’s Stroll if Harry Cobden rides. Almost always a top of the market race where a G1 horse emerges. Look for the class horse in the field.

LH – Kim Muir - Waterford Whispers / Uhavemeinstitches

Pertemps- Supremely West and Gowel Road may be a value bet on the day.

Friday

Gold Cup

MT – Strongly feel Inothewayurthinkin will not win. Don’t fancy Galopin Des Champs either. Gaelic Warrior might be too keen to get home. Don’t fancy Haiti Couleurs, hasn’t got form to think he can win at this level.

Grey Dawning not impossible off a quiet prep. Like Jango Baie and The Jukebox Man. Jango Baie looks like he will improve for step up in trip. Similarly TJM but trainer was targeting the King George this season.

LH – Complex race. McManus horses: cannot see Inotheway being good enough to defend his title. Spillane’s Tower may be aimed at Grand National. So could Fact To File run here?

GdC probably too old but could still be good enough to make the frame if wearing cheekpieces. GW has the talent but he’s a complicated ride. Haiti Couleurs is not good enough. Jango / TJM look the pair to focus on. Love how TJM managed to win King George in spite of the poorest jump of the principals at the last. Fastorslow not totally impossible to imagine him running a nice race at a big price.

SB – Jango Baie at Ascot this season was “a wow moment”. Envoi Allen might shorten.

Triumph

LH – No idea!

MT – Was Narciso Has an outstanding hurdler here? If so, can see why Proactif / Selma de Vary are at the top of the betting. But if not... the British horses are probably underrated. Minella Study looks some value based on his form.

SB – Backed Selma and happy to roll with that.

Albert Bartlett

SB – Kripticjim has a chance at 20/1.

LH – Klimt Madrik, chased home No Drama This End in the Challow, and King's Bucks for HdB, both have chances.

MT – Take on the top of market. Horses 5/1 or shorter 0/20 in recent years.

Two longshots: Moneygarrow looks like he wants this trip. Hipop de Loire wants decent ground. Ubetuba – Olly Murphy, ridden by Ben Sutton. Would be interesting if Sean Bowen gets the ride.

County Hurdle

MT – Karbau has good chance.

LH - Strong view from Ruby that Karbau is the one.

SB – Declan Rix made a strong case for Hello Neighbour – this is his only entry.

Hunter Chase

MT - Willitgoahead will benefit from stronger stamina test. Decent chance at about 14/1.

Mares' Chase

LH – Like Spindleberry but don’t love her prep. Dinoblue will need to improve and looks poor value. Really like Diva Luna. Ben Pauling very positive about her.

Martin Pipe

SB – Jump Allen prepped in a charity race so look for his entries.

Panel Lucky 15

SB – La Conquiere – Dawn Run, Thursday
LM – Munsif – Fred Winter, Tuesday
LH – Meetmebythesea – Jack Richards, Wednesday
MT – Idaho Sun – Supreme, Tuesday

Good luck!

Monday Musings: A Strong Constitution

/in /by

Almost exactly a year ago, I was invited by my friend Malcolm Cain to attend a Cheltenham preview meeting on a Saturday evening in Central London, writes Tony Stafford. It was a great do, very close to the event itself, and much debate focused on whether Constitution Hill would be able to regain the Champion Hurdle he had ceded to State Man and injury the previous year.

Lydia Hislop was one of the panellists and she was wary about the present state of his jumping whereas I managed to get in a word suggesting he was the best hurdler I’d ever seen. As we all know, he fell in the Champion Hurdle a few days later when a 4/7 shot; tumbled over again at Aintree the following month, and stopped as if shot at Punchestown.

In the five-horse Fighting Fifth Hurdle on his comeback run last November he got only as far as the second hurdle when making it three falls and a submission in his four latest runs following an unblemished ten victories in a row and a total of 103 lengths to the good.

While the behind-the-scenes machinations that produced last Friday’s £40k 4yo and up novice race at Southwell over one and a half miles might well have had ulterior motives, the desired effect – a win for the nine-year-old – was achieved and spectacularly so.

What nobody expected – unless Oisin Murphy might have had an inkling, judged on his post-race comments about when he rode the horse a couple of weeks earlier – was the sort of performance that you rarely see in any flat race.

While there weren’t any superstars among the opposition, more than a few of them were anything but the proverbial trees. Nine and a half lengths was the verdict, so 11 career wins – 112 lengths in total, at ten lengths a time and no doubt we hope, much more to follow.

We’ll have to wait until midweek’s crucial schooling session for a decision. Nico de Boinville will be hoping that Nicky Henderson and owner Michael Buckley will agree with him to allow their extraordinary nine-year-old to return to his day job, before embarking on what could be a lucrative second career on the flat.

As a jumps trainer – not merely any jumps trainer but one who has won nine Champion Hurdle races and pretty much everything else – Henderson would no doubt love to make it a round ten. He’s 75 now, yet there’s no diminution in the ambition nor the uncanny knack of getting his horse right on the big day.

In some ways Southwell on Friday was a big day.  The Arena publicity machine (and Simon Mapletoft on Sky Sports Racing – I didn’t watch ITV) was in full volume afterwards, talking up the “tremendous crowd”. I suppose 3,800 is a lot for a Friday night at Southwell. I’ve been there when you’d struggle to find 300 – including staff and jockeys!

There was no disguising the excitement though as Oisin and the wonderful gelding returned to weigh in. He had overcome so many new experiences. First time in starting stalls, a first time on a Tapeta surface, and, of course, the first time he didn’t need to jump an obstacle.

I know Oisin has experience over jumps. He was fulfilling an ambition when he rode the six-year-old Ike Sport for Neil Mulholland on Boxing Day 2024 at Wincanton. The pair never got involved and Oisin eventually pulled up his mount. No doubt he’ll be at Cheltenham as a guest of Michael Buckley and probably hoping Nico forgets to set his alarm and a substitute rider is needed.

Incidentally, my host at the Cheltenham preview last year was involved with Buckley in a Cheltenham Festival winner trained by Nicky Henderson. They were among the members of the Men In Our Position Syndicate that also included Victor Chandler.

We talk of the correlation between hurdles and flat race abilities in handicap terms as being between 45 and 50lb. Constitution Hill is a 170-rated jumper, so there’s no reason why that couldn’t translate as a 120ish flat horse. Initial estimates of the worth of the single romp at Southwell has him already well into the low 100s and if he’d have had another furlong, say, to travel, he’d have won by at least 15 lengths, so you can add a few pounds to that!

What would you do if you were Michael Buckley? He has already stated that he wouldn’t mind having a crack at the Melbourne Cup. Two miles on fast ground? Maybe.

If he did go to Melbourne and won, he would eclipse the record age of a winner. Joseph O’Brien sent the eight-year-old Twilight Payment to win the 2020 race and he thereby joined Toryboy in 1865 and the 1938 victor Catalogue as the joint-oldest winner.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong yesterday, local history was made as Ka Ying Rising made it 18 wins in a row in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup, taking the £693k Group 1 race by an easy three and a half lengths under Zac Purton, smashing the track record in the process.

The David Hayes-trained five-year-old beat the previous record of 17 in succession set by another great local hero, Silent Witness. He started at 1/20 and Hong Kong racegoers who like to back a favourite would never have had much doubt that he would triumph yet again. The question now is, how far can he stretch the elastic?

Reverting to what could await Constitution Hill when he does turn to a flat-race programme, there is no bar on older horses being successful on the level. Hughie Morrison’s Alcazar was at his best as a ten-year-old when his crowning glory was victory in the Prix Royal Oak (Group 1) at Longchamp under Micky Fenton.

My memory is not always accurate, but I do believe that a 12-year-old hurdler called Beau Caprice won a division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle, forerunner of the Supreme and run in the old days in two divisions, in 1966. I think he was trained by Fulke Walwyn. [He was – Ed.]

But I cannot remember any nine-year-old winning a flat race first time out, certainly not one of this quality and by such a wide margin. Even if de Boinville gets his way and Constitution Hill does run at Cheltenham in a couple of weeks’ time, that surely will be the finale to his stellar jumping career, but one which with luck might have already equalled the feat of such as Istabraq with his three in succession.

- TS

My 2025 Cheltenham Festival Betting P&L

/in /by

The Cheltenham Festival 2025 was, as always, a glorious assault on the senses and a searching test of constitution across four days. The thrilling sport has been covered in detail elsewhere on site and so in this post I'll ask and answer this: 28 races later, how did it go from a wagering standpoint?

The tl;dr is "pretty bad", and now, if you're not from the TikTok generation, allow me to flesh out that two word 'too long, didn't read' summary.

I've been tracking my P&L publicly for many a moon, very definitely not because I enjoy basking in the glory: there is rarely much of that even in positive ledger years. No, it relates more to 'walking the talk'. I set up geegeez.co.uk as a site for racing punters because I am a racing punter. I didn't like the tools available at the time (or the price of those that were half decent) so I built my own. The bare-faced arrogance (and, yes, stupidity) of it!

As ever, it bears repeating at the outset that the numbers are completely irrelevant. Lots of people bet more, lots of people bet less. We are, or should be, all be betting within our means and that's the only context we each need to be personally accountable against. I'll never have a life-changing Cheltenham at either end of the profitability spectrum, and that's perfectly fine.

But the cerebral challenge and the ongoing engagement of the ups and downs as an ante post portfolio is assembled are, for me, life-changing on a day to day, week to week, basis. Most people in our special little world get that, most outside of it don't. How lucky we are to have these little endorphin hits that punctuate the year-long Cheltenham narrative and enrich in a small but meaningful way our general existence? Even when the results are shitty!

Because here's another thing: it doesn't matter how good or bad we are at punting. Luck, and variance, will at times make us look better or worse than our reality, whatever that is.

When Majborough walked through the second last; when first Constitution Hill and then State Man, five lengths clear at the final flight, fell; when Jonbon thought there were no fences in the back straight; when Ballyburn did... well I'm not actually sure what Ballyburn did; when the Aintree-bound non-staying too-old Bob Olinger turned up at Cheltenham and defied his years to outstay the champion; when the 'unbeatable' top two in the Triumph market got chinned by a 100/1 shot that's never jumped a hurdle in public; and when the invincible Galopin Des Champs got hammered by a supplemented interloper in the Gold Cup...

Individually we might - indeed, should - expect these things to happen. But, in concert, they were akin to a wagering - and, for those more, and at the same time less, fortunate than us, ownership - black swan event. But these micro disasters (when horse and rider return unscathed) are the very reason we can get a bet on at the Festival. In spite of the one-eyed half-cooked dogma of most of the preview circuit, there are no certainties here. And hallelujah to that. Except when I've backed them, obvs.

Here's how those horses sent off at 11/4 or shorter at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival fared:

 

The record of short priced favourites (11/4 or shorter) at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival

The record of short priced favourites (11/4 or shorter) at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival

 

As can be seen from the summary at the bottom of that image, five of 20 won for an ROI loss of worse than 40% at starting price (the red line denotes the odds-on / odds-against watershed: just two of seven odds-on shots won).

Feel free to grimace at your own dropped pies there. And, once you've done that, you may indulge in a bit of good old fashioned schadenfreude at my expense. Here we go...

 

 

So the question now is, "what will I do differently next time?"

And the answer is, pretty much nothing. The game is all about beating the odds: if you can find a way to consistently beat starting price (or, more accurately, exchange starting price) with your wagers, you will win. Period. That's the simple mathematical universal truth, and it's one that every ante post player knows.

25/1 Majborough sent off 1/2 means a 4% chance became a 67% one. But not 100%. There are none of those, as we were so ruthlessly reminded last week.

 

The record of horses priced 11/4 or shorter at the Cheltenham Festival 2021 to 2025

 

Beating the odds is the name of the game. We all have specialisms and weaknesses within that framework. My Achilles heel is a desire for 'action' which manifests in too many bets in races where I already know I don't know (the handicaps and Champion Bumper most notably). But paying the 'stupid tax' to get that action is an acceptable price for me; I generally hope to claw back action losses from the Graded races.

And if I don't, so what?

It's never going to make me rich or poor. Some years I'll be a little richer, and some - like this one - I'll be a bit poorer. But every year I get to engage with a fantastic sporting spectacle, and to marvel at the brilliance of the horses and riders and trainers - and the dedication of myriad staff, and to take the value test.

The Cheltenham Festival is a tiny microcosm of a punting year, but the keenness of focus makes people arrive at disproportionate and often plain wrong judgement calls on their betting approach.

The best thing to do, in my opinion anyway, is to helicopter out and ask questions about whether you found value. And, more fundamentally than that, whether the whole process of looking in the big book of form and wiling away carefree hours trying to locate an angle, an edge, a horse, generated the most important value proposition of all: a bit of fun, and an escape from some of the humdrum of life.

If the answer to that is yes, then you, like me, were a winner before the Festival even started.

Matt

Monday Musings: Preview Season is Over

/in /by

I went to a very swish Cheltenham Preview Night in the Bleeding Heart Restaurant, a stone’s throw, as they used to say, from Farringdon Station in London on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. I had the good fortune to have been invited by a friend and so well was my attendance anticipated, I was designated Malcolm Caine plus 1.

I got there far too early, but then hourly trains do not leave too much flexibility. I hadn’t previously met either Joe Beevers or Neil Channing, the guys who formed Betting Emporium in 2013. They were brought together by their joint love (and success) as professional gamblers and poker players. Not only did they share a birthday, December 9, but in the same year too.

The food was great – as I hoped it would be – although I cannot vouch for the dessert as I had to leave to get my train home. I wonder if Malcolm, or one of the trio of Patrick Neville/Dylan Cunha owners (among them Seamus, adjacent to me, who accepted the white wine that was surplus to my requirements). I wonder also if any of the trio nabbed my crème brulee, Malcolm wouldn’t have – he hates it.

The guest star on my (our) table was compere for the night, Sean Boyce of Sky Sports Racing, a superb, knowledgeable link between the other experts Lydia Hislop and commentator and, so it appears, a real shrewdie-dudie punter in Richard Hoiles, and Channing of course. Looking at Sean, I still wonder why he added that beard to what close up is revealed as a very youthful visage. Maybe he wanted the aura that people think age can add. I can assure him, stay young as long as you can, mate.

I did check with Malcolm, best known Cheltenham-wise as one of the owners and in whose colours 2009 Triumph Hurdle winner Zaynar ran. 2009? That’s nothing, I had one of the favourites in the same race in my colours 23 years earlier: Tangognat ran a shocker on the fast ground that day in 1986.

Arriving early as I did, before the maybe 80 or so all very much close to being punting pros by the sound of the knowledge that emanated from all parts of the basement room throughout the evening, Joe Beevers was the only non-staff member in view. Joe, an amiable chap, tested my suitability for future employment by asking me to join him. I had to allot a pen and the cheat sheet leaving room for notes on each of the races of the week, either on the seat or between the cutlery on each place setting. I elected for the table given my proclivity for sitting first and looking afterwards.

Neil Channing came in soon after. So often had I either seen his punting-wise contributions to Nick Luck’s Sunday show on Racing TV, or heard about them, that it was great to meet the man. In much of my life, I had marvelled that I had never met this person or that, often to be disarmed by their recollection of a specific occasion that I had completely forgotten about. Maybe when I get the results of my recent MRI scan on what used to be my brain, that would give a clue to my sporadic memory.

Neil – can I call you Neil after one meeting, if in fact it was our first? – he thought probably not but couldn’t place when one might have occurred. I’ll see if the hospital can fit him in on a quiet day, presumably after the Festival, on which we were supposed to be concentrating fully.

The Judi Dench reference came out when I or he got round to York as a place he had visited. He and his wife have been living a mildly nomadic existence over the last couple of years, not in the houseboat I was anticipating, rather in Airbnbs.

He and Mrs Neil enjoyed York and I said that I’ve been lucky enough to stay there several times courtesy of former Hackney Councillors Jim and Mary Cannon, in their four-storey “mansion”, compared to Hackney anyway, around the corner from where Dame Judi went to school. I told Neil that and he said Dame Judi also has a birthday on December 9. Small world.

Neil then threw in that Eddie the Shoe (Fremantle) had last summer chosen York to spend the latest of his numerous romantic liaisons – the previous ones presumably not quite surviving his mania for Fulham Football Club. Eddie was one of the earlier regular casual subs on my desk at the Daily Telegraph in the days when I was Racing Editor – thus 1979-1990, exactly duplicating Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister.

Another aside – my birth-twins story beats yours, chaps. I shared at school a birthday with a boy called Tony Zahl. Not only was he born on March 4, 1946, and had the same first name as mine, he was even in the same house at Central Foundation school, 1.3 miles east along Clerkenwell Road at the Old Street/City Road junction.

Tony, more recently known as Peters, had two good friends, brothers Steve and Kevin Howard. Many years after our school days, we bumped into each other at a racecourse and as Tony’s love of going racing waned, Steve and Kevin became close friends, even staging two Cheltenham Preview nights in Billericay. Steve found a couple of “last-ditch” mortgages for me, Kevin provided the shellfish for our regular Friday of Cheltenham – once I’d left the DT – betting sprees in the Chequers pub in Billericay.

I digress, as I expect you noticed.

For most of the time during the analysis of the major races of the week – I was off before we got to the events where maybe the odd GB-trained horse might take a hand - I marvelled at the knowledge spontaneously exhibited all around the room.

Malcolm had another edge on me there as among the minor partners in Zaynar was Michael Buckley, and my friend had spoken to him recently. He elicited from him the news that Constitution Hill “has never been better!”

Not only is Lydia Hislop fantastic in her role, often (what delight) in tandem with Ruby Walsh, she too has an encyclopaedic knowledge, and impressive memory to go with it. Who would have believed that from his little office just off from Arsenal’s old Stadium in Highbury, Mark Popham could have launched the careers of Lydia and Rishi Persad, not to mention Ed Prosser, horse sales reporter for the Racing Post for many years and then the UK representative for Keeneland sales? I can imagine worse jobs than that considering I went there 40 or 50 times in my journalistic and owner representation years.

Next to Lydia on her table was one more proper expert, Paul Jones, another whom I’d never met. As promised last week, editor Matt Bisogno gave me Gary Wiltshire’s book, “Fifty Years in the Betting Jungle”, sub-titled “confessions of an on-course bookie” which Paul Jones co-wrote.

I’ve known Gary for most of those ever-stretching decades and still run into him when I go to Chelmsford, maybe a far cry from Dettori Day and Gary’s calling card £1.4 million loss, but it’s still part of the same stretch fabric.

Paul Jones inserted his two-penn’orth through the evening, and like everyone of this hand-picked gathering, he was totally clued up.

In between one of the small intervals I asked him: “Are you the Paul Jones that co-wrote Gary Wiltshire’s book?” Then we were away. I must say, I didn’t get sent the first one either and haven’t read it. I do feel it’s good that Paul came out flat about his involvement and you can see a journalist’s hand in the deal. What I didn’t like was when prices of odds-on shots are listed as 1/2 on – rather than 2/1 on or plain 1/2 as I’m sure the star of the book would say and has said every day of his colourful life.

If you are looking for lots of pictures, forget it. The type face is unspectacular but easily readable. Go get one, he’s 70 now, with his share of health issues, some not unconnected of course to his once weighing in at 37 stone! The belly on the telly as the Sun branded him in those days. The book is published by Weatherbys Ltd and at £19.95 it’s a good read.

I started this piece about the only preview night I’d been to this year, because many in which I’ve been involved were on the Monday night before each Cheltenham meeting at the Bedfordshire Racing Club. We had most of the runners by then and the club’s long-time president, Howard Wright, always declared it “The best of the previews” – his words not mine! We went back all that time since 1979 when I invited him to come as my Deputy Racing Editor at the Daily Telegraph.

Such was his obvious ability that he moved on to bigger things at the Racing Post and was still connected with that paper when, sadly, he died last year. He filled the Sean Boyce role, with me, Ian Wassell of Corals, and BHA two-mile hurdles handicapper David Dickinson as the usual panellists.

David, it seems, was one of Gary Wiltshire’s best friends and once he left the BHA Gary relates that he was free to bet again. Like Neil Channing, Lydia Hislop and the rest from Saturday night, he knows his way around the Betting Jungle. It may be a Jungle, but it was fun reading about Gary’s life and how he’s survived it so spectacularly for such a long time. For me, though, Saturday night was as much about remembering Howard as anything else.

 - TS

How to play the Cheltenham Festival Placepot

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With four days of fierce sport at the Cheltenham Festival looming in the headlights, and much of the form study complete, now is a great time to think about strategy.

Availing of any bookmaker concessions to which you're still entitled is a no-brainer, and the best I'm aware of to date on that score is the tote's "money back as a free bet if second", which will be honoured on all 28 Festival races. Allied to their guarantee to at least match the industry starting price, it's one I'll be using with some regularity through the week.

The other tote angle I'll be playing all week is swinging at the massive placepot pools - £750,000 guaranteed daily, but likely to be closer to a million quid is my guess. And possibly also a crack at Tuesday's jackpot.

To help think about how to play the Cheltenham Festival placepot, let's start at the beginning...

Getting set up

The first thing you need is a tote account. You'll need that to get the free bet if second concession as well, of course. Most readers will already have a tote account but if you don't yet, you can get yours here. You'll probably be offered some other sweetener(s) to open and play on that account, but obviously always check the terms and conditions.

Once you've got your tote account, it's time to know a bit about the way it tends to shake down in CheltenhamPlacepotLand (that's not a real place, obviously).

The Shape of Cheltenham Placepot Dividends

The nature of the Festival is that some days feel harder to bet than others; and that's mainly, as evidenced by the tables below, because some days are harder to bet than others.

This first table shows the pool size and declared placepot dividend for each of the last twelve Cheltenham Festivals. I've colour coded the 'dividend' column where red is a skinny one and green is a big fat juicy (and almost certainly nigh on impossible to hit) payout.

 

 

Realistically, you'd have needed a crystal ball or a very, very, very lucky Mr Felt Tippy to find a placed horse six times in some of those Friday sequences. At the other end of the spectrum, there have been plenty of meh divvies. The sweet spot of gettable and worth getting is in the yellow coloured blocks. Happily, there are lots of those.

Yearly breakdown

In the next two tables, I've broken down these data into Festival years and Festival days. Years first.

 

 

Last year was a flattish one for dividends, the average and median closely aligned at a little north of a hundred quid. But the year before, 2023, saw a median of seven grand. (For the non-maths buffs, the mean average is the sum of the four days' dividends divided by four whereas the median is the middle value of the four days' dividends when placed in order - because there isn't a middle number in four days we take the average of the middle two values. Hopefully that makes vague sense at least.)

There has been the odd flat year from a median perspective, but eight of the twelve years rounded out above £200; and in a quarter of the years the median was better than a thousand of your English pounds (or Irish Euros - you can play those, too, don't you know).

Which day is hardest?

Let's look at the individual days now. There have been a few changes to the race programme this year, both in terms of race conditions and sequence, the impact of which cannot be known at this stage. If the changes have served their purpose, field sizes will be bigger, and the implication is that finding placed horses may be slightly more challenging - and therefore dividends may be commensurately higher. That's the theory at least.

Here's how the dozen years looked on a day to day basis:

 

 

The means are all over the place due to some massively outlying dividends. Tuesday has a £91,000 for a £1 return on its dance card, for example; that's why median is so useful. We can see that, with a median of just £42, Tuesday is typically the 'easiest' day to hit the placepot.

Following that median column down shows a sliding scale of difficulty through the week, culminating in what I like to call "give back Friday", which of course very much presumes you've anything to return at the end of Thursday!

Anyway, those are the numbers. Tuesday may be a day to go narrow, Wednesday and Thursday are days to sharpen the quill, and Friday might be a day to be lucky rather than good.

Bonus Bunce #1

Value is the name of the game, however you play it. If you play for fun, you'll stretch the fun out for longer if you get value. If you play for funds, you don't need me to tell you about the absolutely necessity of getting value. Me? I'm in for both, and seeing as you're reading this, I'd wager you are, too.

So here are two slices of bonus bunce coming your way this week. Three if you count the tote win 'money back as a free bet if second' concession. I keep mentioning it because it's really very good. Anyway, I digress.

The first bonus chip is Tix, a piece of software I developed with Nige, the guy who built most of the geegeez website, that does smart (and less smart if you prefer) staking on multi-race bets like the placepot. Tix saves, literally, hours of faff if you want to cover the most likely permutations without shelling out a gazillion escudos. And - here's where the bonus comes in - winning tickets get paid 5% extra.

If five percent doesn't sound that much, keep in mind that at the end of the punting year it's comfortably the difference between winning and losing overall for a big chunk of the type of literate racing players found ambling across the verdant plains of a site like this one.

In plain English, if you're playing placepot and you're not staking optimally and you're not getting extra money when you win, you're doing it wrong. Don't do it wrong.

Tix is easy to use and if you have a tote account, you've got all you need to get started with it.

1 If you need to, get your tote account from this link

2 Then watch the two minute Tix explainer video here

3 When you're ready to play, go to the app here

4 Put your top fancies in the 'A' column, with lesser hopes on 'B' and perhaps 'C'

5 Cheer them home

6 Get 105% of the dividend on your winners

Bonus Bunce #2

As well as the above, Tix players will be automatically entered into a competition where one (or more) lucky 'potters will share £100 each day. The winner(s) will be the person who gets the highest stake-to-return multiple. For example, if your ticket cost was £2.40 and the return was £240, your stake to return multiple would be 100 (£2.40 x 100 = £240).

We'll do all the sums so you don't need to worry about that. Just know that I chose this approach because it makes it accessible to all players, whether you stake a couple of pounds (or less) or hundreds. We all bet differently and to different stakes, and that should never matter. So the stake to return method makes it a game for everyone to play.

A couple of admin lines on the comp:

  1. In the event of a tie, the prize will be shared between all tied players. There are no tie breaker provisos.
  2. Only bets placed via Tix on Cheltenham multi-race pools (placepot, jackpot, quadpot, Scoop6, placepot 7) will count.
  3. The judge's (my) decision is final - I'm sure it won't come to that.
  4. Prizes will be credited to winners' accounts on the morning following racing, e.g. Wednesday morning for Tuesday's winner(s).

 

Please do enter if you're into placepots, jackpots, quadpots and the like. Your first spin on Tix might be a bit confusing but you'll very quickly get the hang of it. And if you want to simply play the same bet you always do - but with 5% extra when you win, and the chance to cop £100 in the competition - just put all of your picks in the 'A' column, and choose 'x1' on the 'TICKETS' tab - see below.

 

 

 

It's simple once you know how. You can play for a little as penny stakes, so feel free to have a practice run today. Here's the link to TIX again.

If you have any questions, just drop them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer.

Now, let's get this party started - good luck!

Matt

2025 Cheltenham Festival Prep

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The Cheltenham Festival is almost upon us. For some it's just another race meeting, for many it's a special week in the racing calendar, and for a few it's Christmas and birthday rolled into one. Wherever you fit on that spectrum there are things about betting on Cheltenham that are different and that you ought to know. Those extend to what we're doing here on geegeez.co.uk, so let me share the plan for next week...

Daily Festival Previews

We'll have daily previews through the week covering all of the seven races each day. I'm delighted to say that I've got a crack squad of racing thinkers and writers to help you comb the form. They are:

Rory Delargy, a man who has forgotten considerably more than I'll likely ever know about the winter game. Alongside Ruby Walsh, he's a contributor to the Cheltenham Paddy Podcast; and is one half of sportinglife's Racing Consultants as well as a regular correspondent for the Irish Field. He's a long-time friend of geegeez, having penned articles occasionally here for a decade and more.

David Massey is the other half of Racing Consultants and our own 'Roving Reporter'. In his Trackside guise, he is a regular at most of the major meetings, casting an expert eye (two, actually) across the paddock discerning those ready to go and those for whom improvement can be expected another day.

Dave Renham is our resident number-cruncher-in-chief, diving deeply into the data for your delectation every midweek. This is a maiden spin for Dave in the geegeez race preview fold and I'm excited to read his contributions.

Paul Jones is Mr Original Cheltenham Festival Guide, having authored that venerable tome from its inception in 2000 up until 2015. More recently he's been running his own premium service and, as well as racing, is a recognised expert on the Eurovision Song Contest amongst other specialisms. Paul has just finished ghost authoring Gary Wiltshire's new book, Fifty Years in the Betting Jungle, which is available here.

Matt Tombs is a second trends legend, taking up the Weatherby's Cheltenham Festival Guide mantle from Paul in seamless fashion. In recent years, Matt too has focused on his private service, though he can still be found articulately sharing his considered data-driven opinions on the Matchbook podcast and website.

They are all extremely welcome (back) to geegeez. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, you'll be lumbered with my thoughts for the remaining two races each day. Well, you can't have everything, can you?

Remember, it's a one-TWENTY start each day this year, so don't oversleep!

What else?

As well as those daily previews, we've a dedicated Cheltenham zone which you can access here. There you'll find the latest news and updates about the horses, trainers and jockeys associated with the Festival; full trends analysis from Andy Newton across the four days and 28 races; and links to the races themselves.

Gold subscribers will have access to pace maps, full form, video replay links, and our profiling tools, Instant Expert and Profiler. You can grab a weekly ticket for just £15 here.

Offers Galore

There will be offers galore throughout the week and one of the best chances to come out in front at the Cheltenham Festival is to press up any and all for which you're eligible. One of the very best that I'm aware of at this stage is Tote's 'Money Back as a Free Bet if Second' on all 28 races. So, for example, you could bet Kopek Des Bordes in the Supreme and get your stake reloaded if one horse beats him; or Brighterdaysahead in the Champion Hurdle and get a free bet if Constitution Hill does Constitution Hill things.

Obviously there will be races where your pick is neither first nor second, but this offer is one I'll be playing in almost all of the non-handicaps at least.

Geegeez' sister site, Tix, is a partner of Tote and I'm happy to mention their great deals for customers. If you don't yet have a tote account you can get one here. Then you'll be able to a) get their 'new account' goodness, b) play Tix and c) avail of the offer above.

N.B. You need to opt in to this offer which you can do from the 'Promotions' tab on tote's website.

 

 

Elsewhere, bet365 will have daily Super Boosts - one horse they think they can get beaten and on which they are prepared to offer a tempting price.

William Hill are offering players a free bet (stake varies) to use on Day 1.

And I expect all bookmakers to have something for at least some customers before Tuesday's action gets underway - so keep your eyes peeled.

Quick disclaimer: obviously, you need to read the terms and conditions for any offer you're wanting to avail of. Make sure to opt in where required, and only bet what you'd otherwise burn on beer, coffee or something else frivolous.

Daily Tix Competition: Win £100 each day!

If you're new around here, you may not know about Tix, a brilliant piece of tote multi-race software, I co-created. It basically allows for smarter perms on wagers such as the placepot, jackpot, Scoop 6, quadpot, and placepot 7. The short video below explains how it works:

 

 

We've teamed up with tote to offer a daily Tix competition across the four days of Cheltenham. You'll be entered when you place any Cheltenham multi-race bet through the Tix app, and there's £100 in cash each day to the player with the highest stake to return ratio.

What is a stake to return ratio? Well, it's basically the ticket odds, and it's a way of making the competition equally accessible to smaller and larger staking players.

Here are a couple of examples to illustrate how it will work:

Example 1: Ticket cost £1.20, ticket payout (return) £42.50

Stake to return ratio is 42.5/1.2 = 35.42

Example 2: Ticket cost £10, ticket payout (return) £180

Stake to return ratio is 180/10 = 18

In these scenarios, Example 2 returns more actual cash (£180 vs £42.50), and a bigger actual profit (£170 vs £41.30), than Example 1.

But Example 1 has the higher stake to return ratio (35.42 vs 18) and would therefore win the competition if these were the two entries.

A couple of rules.

  1. In the event of a tie, the prize will be shared between all tied players. There are no tie breaker provisos.
  2. Only bets placed via Tix on Cheltenham multi-race pools (placepot, jackpot, quadpot, Scoop6, placepot 7) will count.
  3. The judge's (my) decision is final - I'm sure it won't come to that.
  4. Prizes will be credited to winners' accounts on the morning following racing, e.g. Wednesday morning for Tuesday's winner(s).

What now?

Already on site, in our Cheltenham Festival Zone, are daily trends for all four days; some preview night notes and a further trends deep dive into the Gold Cup; a glut of latest news; and links to the 28 races. If you're a Gold or Lite subscriber, those races will have extra detail such as recent winners, pace maps, and form profiles. You can get Gold (or Lite) here.

I can't wait to get started!

Matt

Monday Musings: The Trials of a Champion

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They crammed into Cheltenham on Saturday, intent on watching possibly the best hurdler of all time go through a public work-out where the betting market suggested there was only a single chance in 13 that he might not retain his unbeaten record, writes Tony Stafford.

Constitution Hill, back from his year’s inactivity with a smart success in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton, was getting paid £71k for his troubles and, as he and Nico de Boinville approached the final flight in a clear lead, even those who risk such odds as a matter of routine often “in-running” were counting their impending returns.

But then it almost ended in, if not tragedy – we’ve seen enough of thise in the UK and elsewhere in the world lately to know the difference – at least horse-racing turmoil, as the big horse crashed through that last obstacle.

 

 

He’s clever, though, is Constitution Hill, and landed efficiently enough while de Boinville wasn’t as complacent as his idling mount had been and stayed on board. Ignominy would have been his fate, but normal service was resumed up the hill, with Brentford Hope merely achieving best of the rest status and a very nice second prize of 26 grand.

Not bad for an afternoon’s work when the winner is rated 29lb his superior. Congratulations are due for Harry Derham to identify such a potential reward.

So now it is straight to the Festival, for which Constitution Hill is a 4/5 chance ahead of the Irish trio of Lossiemouth, Brighterdaysahead and last year’s stand-in winner State Man. Maybe next weekend’s Dublin Racing Festival will offer further clarification of where the potential dangers lie, but 4/5 with the guarantee of non-runner no bet seems value to this jaundiced eye. I said earlier, possibly the best we’ve ever seen. Sorry, he’s the best and you can’t get away from it.

Before Saturday’s other most interesting contest with the Festival in mind, there was general concern that East India Dock, the overnight 8/13 favourite for the JCB Triumph Trial Juvenile Hurdle might be a trifle “skinny” in face of a strong back-up field for this juvenile contest. He started at 2/1 on and won as he pleased.

 

 

This was the race in 2024 where Sir Gino, Constitution Hill’s “shadow” in the Nicky Henderson yard, demolished Burdett Road’s hopes of Triumph Hurdle success when the James Owen gelding had been market leader after his bright start to jumping.

In the event, neither horse was there to try to stem the irresistible force that Willie Mullins was able to bring to the race which he has dominated for the past two seasons with Lossiemouth and then Majborough who won at Cheltenham last March from Kargese.

Sir Gino, having missed Cheltenham, took out Kargese at Aintree and then deputised for Constitution Hill to win the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle in November. With Constitution back in time to run over hurdles at Christmas, Sir Gino was allowed to switch smoothly to fences and impressed so much in beating Ballyburn at Kempton that he’s odds on for the Arkle Novice Chase even though Majborough has also made a winning switch to the larger obstacles. Again, Leopardstown might give us an inkling as to where the Mullins team is now.

Henderson’s skill at earmarking a lightly-raced French import as a Cheltenham Festival contender had, until Saturday, had a serious influence on the Triumph Hurdle market. Lulamba, the easy UK debut winner for Henderson of his juvenile hurdle at Ascot remains the 5/4 favourite despite East India Dock’s ten-length win on Saturday. The third horse home had been 18 lengths behind him when they met previously over the course, now it was 28 lengths back to that Nigel Hawke runner, Torrent.

In between them in the J P McManus colours was Stencil, a good winner two runs back in France for the George/Zetterholm team, but a well-beaten sixth last time out, both races at Compiegne.

Lulamba had raced only once before his smooth success, that was for previous trainer Arnaud Chaille-Chaille (so good they named him twice – still can’t resist it!) at Auteuil. He contested a 15-runner AQPS race and started almost 8/1 yet bolted home by five lengths from another George/Zetterholm juvenile.

Compare that history with East India Dock, who went off in front and made all on Saturday. That was his third unbeaten hurdle race following a busy campaign on the flat where he won twice with three places from ten, running at two miles and ending with an 89 rating. Two different ways of arriving at the same point.

Which do you choose, the battled-hardened ex-flat racer or the totally untested dual hurdle winner? I know which type Henderson would favour and with the immediately-preceding example of Sir Gino who came a similar route in 2023, it’s hard to pass over Lulamba, but I think it would be great for racing if James Owen did have a Festival win.

Incidentally, it seems he still intends having a shot at the Champion Hurdle with Burdett Road. The Greatwood Hurdle winner is up to 150 after his latest third to Constitution Hill and Lossiemouth in the Christmas Hurdle and you are entitled to believe he would have finished closer but for a very bad mistake at the last, which brought a tired effort to the finish thereafter.

Running for third or fourth at Cheltenham is still a worthwhile objective. Last year, the places behind State Man were around £100k, £50k and £25k. With the chance of a smallish field, where can you be getting such value for money? Also, the proud right in your later days to show your grandchildren the race card with your horse and the greatest hurdler of all time contesting the same race.

My grandchildren have had the odd day at the races, but it’s their parents who have the recollection of the day they came to Cheltenham late in January 1986 to see my horse (owned with Terry Ramsden after he bought half my share) win Sir Gino’s and East India Dock’s Triumph Hurdle Trial. The silver trophy was and is very nice, and I’ve promised it to my elder daughter. I just had a look and it needs a clean.

The race in those days was sponsored by the Tote and was worth ten grand to the winner. Tangognat started second favourite for the big race but finished tailed off on fast ground. Peter Scudamore, who had ridden him to that win and also on January 1 at the same course, was forced to ride for his boss David (The Duke) Nicholson despite protest, and won on 50/1 shot Solar Cloud, his and Nicholson’s first winner at the Festival.

When earlier I played a couple of times in football matches against David Nicholson – press versus trainers – I came away with heavily-bruised shins, he was such a tough bugger. But deep down there was a great degree of kindness, too.

A few years later and after the football, a horse I’d bought for two grand off Robert Sangster for an owner of Wilf Storey’s had proved a money-spinner. That horse, Great Easeby, was by Vincent O’Brien’s and Sangster’s French Derby winner and later champion stallion Caerleon and was adept both as a hurdler and a flat-race stayer.

He lined up for the 24-runner Hamlet Cigars Gold Card Handicap Hurdle (precursor to the Pertemps Final) and won all out from fast-finishing Gillan Cove, with Nicholson’s Pharanear a close third.  The stewards interviewed the jockeys to see if Great Easeby had caused interference to Pharanear and 7lb claimer Richie McGrath was entitled to be nervous.

Nicholson, however, instructed his jockey Richard Johnson not to object, which might otherwise had given the race to Gillan Cove. The Duke – more a King to my mind.

Incidentally, 29 years on, the same Richard Johnson signed the chit at Cheltenham’s Tattersalls sales on Saturday night at 230k for an Irish point-to-point winner. The not-so-young McGrath is also busy with a preparation yard in Middleham and remains a great friend and help to his old mate Graham Lee.

*

I note trainers are being recommended by their trade organisation the NTF to request payment for interviews and Dan Skelton is quoted in yesterday’s Racing Post as agreeing with the idea.

I wonder how much trainer Evan Williams would be expecting to price up his “inside information” after Saturday’s 4.20 race at Uttoxeter. Interviewed by Andrew Thornton and asked about his Owl Of Athens that had been backed from the overnight 66/1 to 85/40, he said, “you must be clutching at straws if you backed it”. Owl Of Athens won by eight lengths.

- TS

What Happens on Next Run After The Cheltenham Festival?

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Despite the turf flat slowly beginning to click into gear, I am going to dip my toe back into the world of National Hunt racing for one final time this season, writes Dave Renham. With the Aintree and Punchestown festivals to come there is plenty of great jumps racing still to look forward to.

In this article I will look at the performance of horses on their very next start having had their last race at the Cheltenham Festival. What should be looking for? Is a win at the festival a positive for the next run? How do Cheltenham Festival runners fare at Aintree? What about if they return to the racetrack at the Punchestown Festival? These questions and more will be examined in what follows. Let's dive in.

The data have been taken from 2015 to 2024 and profits / losses calculated to Betfair Starting Price less 5% commission.

[ex-toc]

What impact does Cheltenham Festival finishing position have on next start?

The first port of call is where the horse finished last time out (LTO) at the Cheltenham Festival. Here are the splits:

 

 

Fallers look to be a group of runners to ignore next time: their one in eight win rate came at a cost of over 38p lost for every pound invested. Likewise, those who finished 11th or worse but completed the course had an identical strike rate and similarly eye-watering (-33%) ROI.

In terms of positives, winners at the Cheltenhm Festival have an excellent record on their next start, doubling up just shy of 40% of the time. As a group, they have also returned a steady profit of better than 18p in the pound. Not only that, but they have a positive A/E index of 1.05 implying sustainable profit. If we look at the yearly figures for Cheltenham Festival winners, we see the following in terms of profit / loss:

 

 

Seven of the nine years have turned a profit, albeit a small one in some cases; and the two losing years were far from disastrous. It looks as though Cheltenham Festival winners require very close scrutiny on their next start.

Somewhat surprisingly given the success of LTO winners, horses that finished second at Cheltenham have performed quite poorly when considering the profit/loss column, losing over 33p in the £ and with a low A/E index of 0.74. These runners look to be significantly over-bet and well worth a swerve.

Which Courses have been best for LTO Cheltenham Festival runners?

Next, I wanted to investigate which courses fared best when Festival runners visited on their follow-up run...

 

 

Three courses recorded a profit – Ascot, Cheltenham and Punchestown. However, the Cheltenham bottom line is completely skewed by Premier Magic who was successful in the 2023 Hunter Chase at the huge BSP of 110.14 having been pulled up in the same contest a year earlier.

Next time out at Fairyhouse

At the other end of scale, horses that have headed to Fairyhouse have performed poorly from a decent sample size. Indeed, at the Fairyhouse Easter Festival from last weekend, 23 Cheltenham Festival runners showed up but only one won - Jade De Grugy at odds of 7/4. The 22 beaten included Ferns Lock at 2/7 and Zarak The Brave at 5/6 as well as six other horses at 9/2 or shorter.

It may be worth noting that only 7% of Cheltenham Festival runners make their next start at Fairyhouse.

Next time out at Punchestown

The vast majority of next time out Punchestown runners (roughly 90% of the qualifiers) did run at the Punchestown Festival which is held at the end of April / beginning of May. There are two stats worth noting in terms of these Punchestown runners:

  1. Horses that won LTO at the Cheltenham Festival have an excellent record when turning out at Punchestown next time: there were 34 winners from 75 runners (SR 45.3%) in the sample period for a BSP profit of £40.97 (ROI +54.62).
  2. Clear favourites have also turned a profit at the Irish track thanks to a 50.8% strike rate (63 wins from 124) amounting to a small profit of £13.64 (ROI +11%).

Not many horses head to Ascot on their next outing after the Cheltenham Festival but they tend to run well. There have been six winning years out of nine and with no winners returned above 20/1 the stats have not been enhanced by big priced scorers. Clear favourites have done well from a limited sample winning 9 from 16 (SR 56.3%) for a BSP profit of 12.34 (ROI +77.1%).

Next time out at Aintree

Focusing in now on Aintree, of the 927 runners that ran at the Liverpool track next time 867 of these ran at the showpiece Grand National meeting. 92 of these won (SR 10.6%) for a BSP loss of £55.45 (ROI -6.4%).

If we focus solely on horses that started in the top three of the Aintree betting, we can sneak into profit to BSP. This subset of runners won 67 of their 306 starts (SR 21.9%) for a profit of £13.41 (ROI +4.4%).

Cheltenham Festival winners have also done a good job of backing up that win when turning out next time at Aintree with 18 winners from 62 (SR 29%) for a profit to Betfair SP of £12.54, just over 20p in the £ ROI.

In terms of negative stats, it looks best to swerve horses that were either beaten by 30+ lengths at Cheltenham and those who failed to complete the course. These runners when coming to the Aintree Festival have combined to win just 14 races from 233 runs (SR 6%) with heavy losses of £105.81 (ROI -45.4%)

Race type – handicap v non-handicap

There is a significant difference in terms of performance between horses that contest a handicap after the Cheltenham Festival as opposed to a non-handicap. If we compare the A/E indices of each group we see a marked differential:

 

 

Horses that run in a non-handicap after the Cheltenham showpiece have been far better value than those who went on to contest handicaps. If we look at the BSP returns, we can see that the figures correlate strongly with the A/E indices:

 

 

As can be seen, horses that ran in a handicap next time lost over 20p in the £, whereas non-handicappers lost less than 4p. In fact, if we stick to horses that raced in a handicap at the Cheltenham Festival and then contested another handicap next time, the record is even worse:

 

 

These results make for very poor reading. I wonder if it is because most of the horses would have been trained with Cheltenham as their main target. Whatever the reason, I would not be keen on backing handicappers from the Cheltenham Festival when contesting another handicap next time. I should add that one of the handicap winners was priced 94.51 BSP so taking that one out means the other 1326 runners would have lost you over 32 pence per £1 staked, even more distressing than the 25% losses with that brief respite included!

 

Days since Cheltenham Festival run

Let's now consider the time between a horse's Cheltenham Festival run and its next appearance. Here are the splits:

 

 

A very small proportion of runners are seen again quickly (within two weeks) and this group has made a profit from a one in four strike rate. A good proportion of the 43-to-70 days group ran at the Punchestown Festival which perhaps explains the strike rate, the small losses and decent A/E index. The 181-to-270 group has the most interesting results for me. We are roughly talking about a break of between six and nine months which essentially takes us to the start of the following National Hunt season. These runners have just about broken even to BSP, with a near to one in four win rate and a very solid A/E index. Horses that started clear favourite after this 181-to-270-day break have performed well thanks to 125 wins from 235 (SR 53.2%) for a BSP profit of £24.24 (ROI +10.3%).

 

Market factors for LTO Cheltenham Festival runners on their next start

The next area I wish to look at is the price of the runners on their next start after the Cheltenham festival. I am look at the Betfair SP price and the table below looks at the key stats:

 

 

Although the 2.02 to 3 group have incurred relatively big losses, it generally has been preferable to stick to horses BSP priced under 9. Horses priced 21 or more have offered poor value and incurred significant losses of over 28p for every £1 staked.

If we compare the A/E indices between horses priced 9 or lower with those 9.2 or higher, we see a big difference:

 

 

To get the best value, horses priced 9 or shorter are the ones to concentrate on. Also, given the non-handicap data I shared earlier, it should come as no surprise that if sticking to this shorter price range in non-handicaps the record improves further. This subset of runners has edged into profit thanks to 443 wins from 1275 runners (SR 34.8%). The profit stands at £19.15 (ROI 1.5%).

Class Move Next Time after Running at Cheltenham Festival

Before finishing the main body of the article I have a couple of additional stats to share based on the race class difference between the Cheltenham Festival run and next start – they are both negative:

 

 

UK-trained horses going up in class on their next start have struck less than once every 18 starts for an enormous 43% loss, while those trained anywhere stepping up to Grade 1 level from a lower class run at the Cheltenham Festival were similarly catastrophic to follow in terms of both strike rate and ROI. Horses from these groups should generally be avoided!

 

Summary – Key Takeaways 

Below are the key findings from this article.

 

 

It's a pity publication has followed the (early this year) Fairyhouse Easter Festival [apologies, my fault - Ed.] as that was predictably disastrous for Cheltenham Festival follow-up runners. But, with Aintree and Punchestown still ahead, as well as the start of the next season, there's plenty to heed, and hopefully profit from, to come.

- DR

Monday Musings: Some Absurde Numbers

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There was plenty of talk last week about what a numbers game racing has become, writes Tony Stafford. Cheltenham became hostage once more to Irish stables, Willie Mullins leading the way of course. I have come to enjoy his successes if only that it gives me another chance to show that in his constant interviews, he is the most polite, unassuming man you could get for all that success. Then again there was plenty of excitement going around after Ballyburn.

Dan and Harry Skelton were second only to Willie, and if Dan could usurp his long-time mentor Paul Nicholls and win a first trainers’ championship that would also be nice, joining brother Harry who was champion jockey a few years ago.

No, but it’s two other different numbers that have taken my fancy: 11 (and a little bit) and 3,000. One concerning race times – the other an auction price that shows even modest investments can sometimes buy into some exceedingly desirable bloodlines at a time when everyone is there to have a crack.

First the race times. I think last week provided some of the most testing ground ever to have been seen, certainly since before the days of racecourse drainage systems.

I can now reveal that one race last week was run in a slower time than any of the Grand Nationals since 1883. So, what could it be? The ground was certainly heavy for the running of the 4m2f Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter on Saturday, with Irish-style water on the course in places.

The winner went round in 9 minutes 43.10 seconds, slower than any of the Aintree showpieces since Red Marauder and Richard Guest led home three surviving rivals in a funereal 11 minutes, 0.1 seconds 23 years ago.

But it wasn’t that time that stands supreme. Hexham operated last week with a going stick figure of 3.2 - I cannot remember one of those. It was heavy at the corresponding meeting in 2023, when the four-mile handicap chase was completed in 9 minutes 57.57 seconds. Last week it took Breeze Of Wind a mind-numbing 11 minutes 0.20 seconds, equivalent to between three and four furlongs extra in distance.

If you think he must have been left all alone in that race – far from it. Five of the six runners were still in contention coming to the final fence as the rather unlikely distances over the line reveal: 1.25 lengths, short head, neck and then 3.75 lengths to the final finisher.

You might also expect any horse to have undertaken the gruelling examination of Hexham that day to need to stay at home for a few weeks of R and R. Not a bit of it. Philip Kirby’s Heritier De Sivola galloped clear of his rivals to win Thursday’s three-mile handicap chase eased down by 32 lengths. Two days later at Newcastle, carrying a 7lb penalty for the Hexham win, he bolted up by more than five lengths, again on heavy ground on one of the country’s most demanding tracks.

Reverting to the time question, it took Breeze Of Wind and chums one-tenth of a second more to complete the four miles of the BK Racing Hexham Marathon Handicap even than Red Marauder to win his Grand National in the days when the big race was a full 4m4f. His time had not been exceeded since 1883 when owner-rider Count Karel Kinsky won on Zoedone in 11 minutes 39 seconds flat.

With the ground everywhere – except the amazing track that is Kempton – susceptible to the slightest shower, so high is the water table, fears for the prospective going for the Lincoln this week and the Grand National next month are realistic.

Now for the other number. Imagine you are at a bloodstock sale and have your eye on a two-year-old filly – in this case from the remaining dispersal of the late Sir Robert Ogden’s horses - and are waiting for lot 618, a filly by Showcasing.

But you’ve also looked at lot 617, a daughter of Kingman – stud fee 125k – and accept she will be way out of your price range. There was a negative about her, though, as she had scarred knees and the white obviously scared everyone off risking the unraced two-year-old.

But Julia Feilden had done her research and found out that before he died in March 2022, Sir Robert sanctioned a £20,000 operation to help correct a serious physical problem with the filly’s forelegs, the impact of the splints leaving unsightly (to some) white hairs on her knees as a consequence.

While wanting to wait for her number one pick, Julia watched in amazement as the bidding stalled on the Kingman filly, and after she stepped in, stopped, to her amazement, at her bid of 3,000gns.

The following lot was knocked down to Sam Sangster for 50k – “miles beyond my limit”, recalls Julia, but that filly has won already, second time out in a novice for the Brian Meehan stable at Southwell and looks set for a decent career as a three-year-old.

Already named when she bought her, Julia formed a syndicate of which she is a ten-per-cent shareholder. On Saturday night at Southwell, having learnt her trade on turf in the summer/autumn, she brought her all-weather form figures to 3211, adding to a recent Chelmsford success.

Dylan Hogan – “either he or my daughter Shelley ride her every day – she’s very buzzy” came from a long way back to get up near the line, Notre Dame showing lots of speed. Rated only 60, Julia reckons she needs to win on the turf to maximise future financial potential. But whatever the truth of that, it does prove that for the professionals, there’s always one that defies logic and slips though the net.

**

The thorny question of how the Irish do so well at Cheltenham was broached upon by the BHA’s Julie Harrington in an earnest publication even as the one-sided (though not quite as much as in some years) battle continued. I think a good proportion of the blame falls to the issue of how our handicappers treat the Irish and then our own horses.

To illustrate my point, you get the feeling that the BHA team hate horses winning races. It seems their brief is to allow one win, maybe two and then to put the handbrake on.

Last week I felt so sorry for Sophie Leech and family and their owners for the treatment of their Madara after he won at the Dublin Racing Festival. Only one of three runners from the UK to go over there in early February he added to a nice win at Cheltenham by collecting a valuable 2m1f chase at Leopardstown.

Just a five-year-old, the ex-French gelding came with a flying run that day under James Reveley, beating Henry de Bromhead’s Path d’Oroux by 2.5 lengths. The BHA handicapper’s response was to raise his mark from 133 to 143. Meanwhile the runner-up went up by only 3lb!

In the end neither enjoyed the Grand Annual at the Festival, possibly because of the ground, Madara fading away and the de Bromhead horse always at the back.

Another ridiculous piece of handicapping was the mark allotted to Ebor winner and Melbourne Cup seventh Absurde, a 110 flat-racer. From spring last year, this six-year-old was given a programme that suggested just how highly he was regarded in the Willie Mullins stable targeting big prizes under both codes.

Phase one jumping – aimed at getting a handicap mark – as lenient as possible, so he wins his novice at Killarney in May first-time out very easily at 2/7. Phase one flat – Royal Ascot where he was second to stable-companion Vauban in the Copper Horse Handicap, but 7.5 lengths behind the winner.

Phase two jumping – Listed race at Galway, sixth of nine. Phase two flat, wins Ebor off 104 under Frankie Dettori.

Phase three flat, 7th in Melbourne Cup off new flat mark of 110.

Phases three and four jumping, pulled up behind Coldwell Potter, the 740k buy from the Elliott stable; then 4th at levels and 33/1 behind Ballyburn. Now he’s eligible for a mark.

Phase five, with 138 jumping compared to 110 flat – so with probably at least 12lb and likely a bit more to spare, he shows brilliant speed to stop yet another well-laid-out Skelton fancy going up the hill. Too easy – if you’re Willie Mullins and you have an Ebor winner to work with!

As if that wasn’t enough, ten of the only 13 finishers in the Boodles Handicap Hurdle for four-year-olds were Irish-trained. The Noel George team – with a McManus horse the handicappers dropped 10lb off one run of evidence, Milan Tino – and I’m not sure if he counts as training in France, was 6th; Jack Jones with an ex-Joseph O’Brien horse (he trained the winner) An Bradan Feasa was 8th; and Fergal O’Brien with the Jim Bolger capture Teorie was 10th.

In the old days trainers aiming at Cheltenham used to try to buy from the October HIT sale when there was just the Triumph Hurdle and its field of up to 30 runners to aim at. Now with this handicap to target, the Irish get going well before that. There needs to be a much better co-ordinated programme of worthwhile juvenile contests from August onwards as horses need at least three runs to get a handicap mark.

- TS

London Racing Club: Cheltenham Festival Preview Notes 2024

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In front of a packed and enthralled gathering at the Kensington Holiday Inn last night, a panel comprised of some of the shrewdest judges in the racing game assemble to share their wisdom. They were Matt Tombs (MT), Festival stats man extraordinaire, Lydia Hislop (LH), multi-racing broadcaster of the year and presenter/writer of different versions of Road to Cheltenham, Paul Kealy (PK), Racing Post's best tipster, and Jamie Benson (JB), compere and representing the evening's sponsor, tote.co.uk.

Here's what they all had to say...

Tuesday / Day 1

Supreme

PK: Really like Firefox, especially if Ballyburn goes Baring Bingham or in the without market if that one runs here. Worries about the Henderson yard form put me off Jeriko de Reponet. [Of course, there's still time for that form to change]. Daryl Jacob is sweet on Mistergif at a bigger price.

LH: Tullyhill has jumping questions to answer but think he'll end up being the Willie Mullins #1 - this is his only entry. Firefox has a good chance, and think Jeriko might drift to the point where he's a backable price.

MT: Might play an outsiders on drying ground, Favour And Fortune. But really like Firefox and, if Ballyburn goes to the longer novice race, think he's one of the bets of the week.

JB: Mistergif a live outsider. Plenty of chat for him.

Arkle

MT: Don't fancy Facile Vega, or JPR One. Ought to like Il Etait Temps but he always seems like he's about to mess things up! Taking a punt on Hunters Yarn who looks a fast horse, and he's more likely to get away with a mistake at Cheltenham, where the fences are nowadays relatively easy. He just has lots of speed.

LH: Can see Found A Fifty being handy without leading, and performing much better as a consequence.

PK: Feel like Found A Fifty might want further. Think Hunters Yarn is the best horse in the race, he's top class, and is the most likely winner.

Champion Hurdle

PK: Very much like Irish Point as a horse though doubt he's quick enough to trouble State Man.

MT: Didn't think State Man could beat Constitution Hill, but he is a really top class horse in his own right and clear of the remainder of this field.

Mares Hurdle

LH: Will Lossiemouth stay 2m4f? It's not guaranteed. Marie's Rock, always thereabouts at this level, is a viable each way alternative.

PK: Agree about Marie's Rock, and Gala Marceau is interesting at a price if you can forgive the run last time.

MT: Don't think Lossiemouth will stay. She's a lay.

Rest of Day 1

LH: The Goffer has the right profile in the Ultima. Aye Right could be an outsider to note. In the Boodles, Roaring Legend will be a big price after his last time loss but he stays well and is tough. Batman Girac a very obvious alternative. In the National Hunt Chase, Salvador Ziggy has a great profile but did have a mishap in the American Grand National last time; been freshened up since then which could be the key.

MT: Like The Goffer in the Ultima, a top of the market race these days. Also like Salvador Ziggy in NH Chase with the same caveats as LH.

PK: City Chief in the Ultima but worried about stable form; The Goffer is better weighted than when fourth last year. In the Boodles, Gary Moore's Through The Ages, a half brother to Yibir, has class and could be better than we've seen. Broadway Boy is a good bet in the NH Chase, or so I thought - apparently he goes Brown Advisory. Can still be backed non-runner no bet (NRNB) for this NH Chase.

JB: Bright Legend in the Boodles represents the right connections (won with Band Of Outlaws) and exits "that" Naas race that has found the last five Boodles winners.

 

CLICK HERE FOR OUR CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL MICROSITE >>

 

Wednesday / Day 2

Gallagher (Baring Bingham)

PK: Ballyburn probably just wins if he runs here.

LH: Ballyburn likely wins in whichever race he shows up in. Predators Gold could be interesting at a price e/w but is a bit of a 'wise guy' horse.

MT: Second string Willie Mullins horse has never won this race or the Supreme. Handstands may be best of the British, trainer Ben Pauling apparently thinks he's better than Willoughby Court (former winner of this race).

Brown Advisory

PK: Broadway Boy form is very good, best of the UK contingent. Had a terrible scope after the Warwick race in which he flopped so that effort is excusable. Fact To File does look smart but Davy Russell thinks he may not stay this trip.

LH: Stay Away Fay could outstay them. He's a very likeable horse. Fact To File looks a brilliant horse but not sure this test plays to his strengths. Like Monty's Star but not his price. Feel like UK is stronger in this division than in many recent years.

MT: Want Fact To File to win, because he could be a good horse for the sport. But think he's probably running in the wrong race (the shorter Turners being a better option). Broadway Boy e/w NRNB a reasonable bet.

Champion Chase

MT: Don't want to oppose El Fabiolo who is short in the betting but not the wrong price. On drier ground, Captain Guinness could be ridden for a place at double figure odds. But think El Fabiolo is an amazing horse who will win easily.

LH: There's nothing to take on El Fabiolo though Edwardstone is a viable e/w bet in spite of the odd jumping liberty. Jonbon is a bit more careful at his fences but on soft ground might not be a play.

PK: Apparently they figured out how to ride Edwardstone last time... as a ten-year-old having his 28th career start! Don't really like backing 10yo+ in the Grade 1's. El Fabiolo is "a tank" and will be extremely hard to beat.

Rest of Day 2

MT: In the last five years, the top two in the Cross Country Chase market have finished first and second, and the third horse hasn't been within 20 lengths of the winner!

PK: In Coral Cup, Built By Ballymore will charge up the hill if the going is soft. Trainer Martin Brassil has saddled the runner in the race in the last two years. Ballyadam is interesting off a layoff in the same race. Love Libberty Hunter in the Grand Annual.

LH: Also like Libberty Hunter in the Grand Annual, and can see Saint Roi running well for all that his hold up run style is probably not ideal for the race. Davy Russell believes soft ground is against Galvin in the Cross Country Chase.

 

CLICK HERE FOR OUR CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL MICROSITE >>

 

Thursday / Day 3

Turners

LH: Ginny's Destiny may have been underestimated, think he'll run well. Gaelic Warrior is in danger of going the wrong way while Facile Vega has good Cheltenham form and enjoys soft ground. Want to see how the market evolves before having a bet.

MT: Connections might feel they have to ride Grey Dawning more aggressively. Gaelic Warrior might be a win only bet given his talent but also temperament. American Mike NRNB is reasonable too, though he may go to a different race.

PK: Ginny's Destiny might end up a value price on the day and could be a bet. Gaelic Warrior cannot go left-handed so against him. Iroko is a possible fly in the ointment: he's very talented but has been off a long time.

Ryanair

PK: Banbridge probably won't run/ surely can't win on soft. Can't have the 10yo Envoi Allen. Big field handicap form might be an angle which brings in Stage Star but Fugitif is big at 20/1 and also Protektorat at 14/1 is good value.

LH: Also likes Protektorat. Not sure how much pace there will be, so think Harry Cobden will be able to dictate on Stage Star. Can see the Fugitif argument, and Envoi Allen has proven Cheltenham form.

MT: Banbridge is the bet IF the ground dries out. At 25/1, Classic Getaway could be worth a try. Ran well early season and drop back in trip makes him interesting NRNB.

Stayers' Hurdle

PK: Teahupoo couldn't win last year so why bet him this? Crambo is progressive but he didn't beat Paisley Park and the old guard by much and PP is a bigger price. Flooring Porter would come into the reckoning if lining up here and, on very soft ground, Botox Has (40/1) would get a bet.

LH: Teahupoo is the young class and could easily win. Crambo up and coming, though Sire Du Berlais is perhaps not in the same form as he was when winning a year ago. He's 12 now. Quite strong on Teahupoo.

MT: Teahupoo is the one good horse in the line up. Not sure Crambo's form is at the same level. At big prices, might be worth a chance with Home By The Lee or even Good Time Jonny at 40/1: he's taking the same Pertemps to Stayers' route that Sire Du Berlais doubled up in last year.

Rest of Day 3

PK: White Rhino in the Pertemps and maybe Lord Snootie if getting a run. Farouk d'Alene would be interesting in that race, too, if getting a good claimer to take a few pounds off. In the Plate, Theatre Man is short enough but perfect for this.

LH: Letsbeclearaboutit in the Plate rates a bet. In the Mares' Novices' Hurdle, we're in for a treat between Brighterdaysahead and Jade de Grugy. The former looks the real deal. Dysart Enos will get weight from them as a non-winner over hurdles but Brighterdaysahead has very strong vibes in her corner.

MT: Not sold on Dysart Enos in the Mares' Nov Hurdle, don't the like softly softly approach ahead of a battle like this. In the Pertemps, Gabbys Cross has had a very smart prep and 12/1 is fair enough. Cool Survivor looks a great play in the Kim Muir.

JB: Will chance Apple Away in the Kim Muir.

 

CLICK HERE FOR OUR CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL MICROSITE >>

 

Friday / Day 4

Triumph

PK: Need to know how the Nicky Henderson form is before contemplating Sir Gino at odds on. He's looked great but that yard form is a real concern. Ethical Diamond is a very interesting Willie Mullins entry at 25/1 in a place.

LH: Ruby has mentioned Ethical Diamond a few times. Agree about the NJH form before considering Sir Gino, whose own form is excellent. Of the Irish, Nurburgring is vaguely attractive. Majborough is a very good looking horse and one for the future, but he might find the Triumph too much at this stage.

MT: Impressed with Sir Gino but feel he's sure to drift unless yard form turns around very soon. What Paul Townend rides for Willie Mullins will shape the rest of the market. Willie apparently said early season, "My Triumph winner got beat first time out", when talking about Ethical Diamond.

Albert Bartlett

MT: Nine of the last ten winners were double figure prices, this race being a totally different challenge to the small field bimbles most have entertained during the regular season. Like Johnnywho, but main advice is take a couple or three darts at appealing odds, win only.

LH: No strong opinion on this race, though feel Reading Tommy Wrong has a reasonable profile.

PK: "Johnnywho is the only one I've backed in the race"

Gold Cup

LH: Big Galopin Des Champs fan. It was a superb effort last year and, ridden positively, think he's the winner again. Things can go wrong with Shishkin (start, lazy mid-race), ground may be against Bravemansgame, while Fastorslow is a good horse but too short in the betting. Feel that Gerri Colombe is too slow away from his fences. For the frame, try L'Homme Presse - ignore the obvious prep over the wrong trip last time - or Corach Rambler - we don't yet know how good he is.

MT: As a racing fan, I hope Galopin Des Champs wins: he's the star turn and is a perfectly square bet at 6/4 on the exchange. But siding with Corach Rambler at the prices.

PK: Agree with Galopin Des Champs chat. Don't think the ground suits Bravemansgame, Shishkin and Gerri Colombe are the wrong price (not positively) and Corach Rambler is a very good horse.

JB: Could The Real Whacker be the forgotten horse? Not impossible in the 'without GdC' market.

Rest of Day 4

LH: Mares Chase is all about whether Dinoblue stays the trip. Allegorie de Vassy looks vulnerable, so if Dinoblue doesn't stay perhaps the Cromwell pair will emerge: Limerick Lace and/or Brides Hill. In the County Hurdle, Iberico Lord or Zenta - both JP horses - look a strong double act.

MT: The Betfair Hurdle form is red hot, so Iberico Lord could go in again in the County. Dinoblue looks good in the Mares Chase and think she will stay. In the Hunter Chase, hard to understand why Premier Magic isn't favourite. He is a very decent bet at 7/1.

PK: Maybe Lisnagar Fortune in the Martin Pipe.

 

CLICK HERE FOR OUR CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL MICROSITE >>

 

Charity Bets

LH: 50 e/w Letsbeclearaboutit - Plate, currently 10/1

PK: 50 e/w Libberty Hunter - Grand Annual, currently 10/1

MT: 50 e/w Gabbys Cross - Pertemps, currently 12/1 in a few places

JB: 50 e/w Bright Legend - Boodles, currently 33/1

Good luck!

Matt

 

Cheltenham Festival Handicaps: An Overview

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For many punters, eyes are fixed firmly on the 2024 Cheltenham Festival as we are now literally days away, writes Dave Renham. In this article I am going to examine the Festival handicaps looking back at the most recent 15 renewals, which take us back as far as 2009. There will be nine handicap races in 2024, four over fences and five over hurdles. These handicaps are bound to be difficult puzzles to solve, unsurprisingly when one considers the number of runners that contest them: over the study period, the average field size for all handicaps has been 22.5!

So, let’s get started.

Cheltenham Festival Handicaps: Market Factors

To begin with, I want to look at the betting market. Here are the Betfair SP returns for different sections of the market:

 

 

At this helicopter level, three things stand out for me. Firstly, the performance of favourites which, as a group, have made a profit. Secondly, the very poor performance of second and third favourites combined. And thirdly, horses priced 7th to 10th in the betting outperforming in win strike rate terms those ranked 4th to 6th. It seems that the value has been with these horses over the past 15 years. Interestingly, horses 7th to 10th in the market returned a profit in nine of the 15 Festival years.

Now, I have combined both hurdle and chase handicaps for the market stats. It is worth noting the favourite stats are quite different when we split into race type:

 

 

Handicap favourites in chases have fared well, winning better than one race in five and returning over 32p in the £. Added to that they have an excellent A/E index of 1.15. Handicap hurdle favourites have performed much less well. This is a good example of why we have to dig deeper into general stats, although we are dealing with smallish sample sizes here. Let me split the results up now starting by focusing on handicap chases.

 

Cheltenham Festival Handicap Chases

Course form

In terms of these races I want to look at whether a previous win at Cheltenham is a positive. To do that, I'll compare the A/E indices of previous Cheltenham winners with those who have not notched a success at the track. This includes all horses that have run at the track before:

 

 

There is quite a significant difference here with past Cheltenham winners the better value. They also have a better overall strike rate.

There is another group of runners that I have not shared yet, which is Cheltenham debutants: horses having their first ever run at the iconic venue. These runners have performed the poorest of all with an A/E index of just 0.63.

Country of Breeding

Next, I want to look to see if the country of breeding makes any difference. Essentially there are three main countries to look at – GB, Ireland, and France. They have provided 97% of the handicap chase runners. Be aware that the win strike rates are going to be low due to huge fields. Here are the splits:

 

 

Irish-bred runners have provided the most qualifiers and they have clearly the best record. The A/E indices for British- and French-bred runners are very low. It should be noted that this is not because handicap chases have been dominated by Irish trainers as we will see later. For the record, American-breds have won two races from 25 runners, but they have had no qualifying runners since 2017, German-breds are one from 18.

Days since last run

Is there a ‘sweet spot’ in terms of the time since the horse was last seen racing? In terms of value there does seem to be. Here are the A/E indices for different groupings. All groups contained at least 250 qualifiers meaning there was a decent sample and similar number of runners in each:

 

 

The first two columns are comfortably the highest implying that horses returning to the track within five weeks have offered the best value. These horses have combined to produce a modest, though not insignificant, 8p in the £ return on stakes. The three cohorts off the track for 36 days or more combined to lose 12p in the £. It seems in handicap chases a more recent run is favourable.

Position Last Time Out

How does last time out performance impact proceedings? Horses that won or finished second last time out (LTO) win far more often than those that finished third or worse. The strike rate comparison is 6.4% versus 3.9%. In terms of profit/loss, however, both groups made losses to Industry SP as you might expect; but LTO winners and runners-up lost 16p in the £ compared with 34p in the £ for horses that finished third or worse. When we look at Betfair SP results we see the following in terms of profit/loss to £1 level stakes:

 

 

Horses that finished first or second LTO have proved profitable to BSP. As a return on investment, this equates to 19p in the £ as opposed to losses of 17p in the £ for horses which finished third or worse LTO.

Of course, both groups have seen big priced winners pop up occasionally which one could argue has skewed both of their bottom lines. However, LTO winners/runners-up have combined to make a profit when the BSP price has been 12.0 or shorter, too. Under these price constraints they have returned just under 8 pence in the £. When we use this price limiter on horses that finished 3rd or worse LTO that group of runners produced losses of 18p in the £.

All the past evidence points to the fact that horses that finished first or second LTO should demand most of our attention when looking for handicap chase selections.

Trainers

Normally when I examine trainer data, we get some potential backing options. However, when we are dealing with competitive handicaps averaging 20+ runners, successful trainers are going to be difficult to find. Here is a list of all trainers who have had at least 25 handicap chase runners during the study period. The table is in alphabetical order:

 

 

Some big names have not managed a single winner in this timeframe including Willie Mullins and Dan Skelton. Following specific trainers in terms of backing to win looks a poor option based on the numbers we see in the table. Hence, I have looked at profit and losses to the Betfair Place market and one could argue a few trainers have the potential to be playable in that context. Here are the findings (biggest profit first):

 

 

Roughly one third of all Gordon Elliott’s Cheltenham Festival handicap chasers have finished in the first four over the past 15 years, which is quite incredible considering the fierce competition in these races. He looks a solid option backing to Betfair Place or each way with traditional bookies. Likewise, his runners should be considered if attacking the placepot.

Indeed, looking back at the bookmaker places paid last year, it's reasonable to assume six places at 1/5 odds (sometimes they paid down to 8th place). On that basis, and at Starting Price, the following returns could have been achieved - using BOG could only improve on these figures:

 

 

Naturally, there are some losing years, and 2024 may be another of those, but as part of a portfolio play, it may be worth keeping in mind.

Elsewhere, Messrs. Pipe, George, Twiston-Davies and Henderson should also not be written off in these races. Their runners would again be considerations for me, certainly as far as the placepot is concerned. One trainer that it seems sensible to steer right away from in Festival handicap chases is Paul Nicholls. Nicholls has long been one of the best trainers in the country but his record in these contests is extremely poor and offers dreadful value.

Finally on trainers, Venetia Williams' figures for both win and place have been skewed somewhat as her three winners were priced 72.43, 66.23 and 42 on the win market, 10.78, 11.88 and 7.2 on the place market. That said, the fact she's had three winners at huge prices means they're likely underestimated.

Run Style

My final port of call for the handicap chasers is run style. We have seen before in numerous articles I have written than run style can be a big factor. Below is a graph showing the A/E indices for the four individual run styles – led (L, 4 in the table below the chart), prominent (P, 3), mid division (MD, 2) and held up (HU, 1).

 

 

As we can see there is a huge bias to horses that lead early or race close to the pace. In fact, if you had been able to predict pre-race which horses would lead or race prominently you would have secured a whopping great profit on both groups to Industry SP, let alone BSP!

 

 

*in this table, the nulls are where - for much older results in our database - the run style has been impossible to score from the in-running comment. 4 is led, 3 prominent, 2 midfield, 1 held up.

There have been 12 horses that have led early and gone on to win a handicap chase at the festival since 2009 and of those, seven had led on their most recent start, while 10 had led in at least one of their last two starts. Also, nine of the 12 had ‘LTO four race pace totals’ of 12 or higher with three of them out-right top rated in terms of pace for their race. Hence, likely front runners should offer us value.

Bonus Handicap Chase Stats

I have a couple of additional handicap chase stats that I think are worth sharing.

Firstly, it looks best to ignore any horse that has failed to reach the first three in any of their last three runs. 288 handicap chasers have come to the Festival with this record and just eight have won (SR 2.8%) for BSP losses of £162.38 (ROI -56.4%).

And secondly, it is preferable to have run at Cheltenham LTO compared to many other courses. Below is a table looking at the performance of Festival handicap chasers since 2009 which had run LTO at any of Ascot, Cheltenham, Doncaster, Kempton, Leopardstown, Newbury and Sandown. These are the LTO courses that have supplied at least 100 runners:

 

 

There is a much higher strike rate for last time out Cheltenham runners but, more importantly, a small profit to BSP and a stand-out A/E index of 1.17 (next best LTO course 0.62).

*

Enough with the handicap chasers. It is time to delve into handicap hurdles now, a group in which I suspect it might be difficult to find strong positive ‘angles’ given the even bigger fields. However, I’ve been wrong many times in the past!

Cheltenham Festival Handicap Hurdles

Course form

I’ll start by once again looking at the past course form data in terms of A/E indices.

 

 

These figures are much closer than we saw with the handicap chase figures. There remains an edge to prior course winners but it is modest at best. Having said that, course winners have snuck into BSP profit, but the figures are skewed by some big priced successes.

Country of Breeding

Irish-breds were the value in handicap chases. What about over the smaller obstacles?

 

 

Irish-bred runners have again proved the best value, though not as dominant as over fences; still, they are certainly more playable than British-bred runners overall. IRE breds have also proved profitable to BSP, with nine winning years out of 15, albeit with a few big priced winners sprinkled into the mix. Such pedigrees clearly outperform their competition because if we compare Industry SP figures, Irish-breds lost only 8p in the £, but British- and French-breds lost a massive 43p and 32p in the £ respectively.

Days since last run

Will we see the same pattern that we did with handicap chasers where there seemed a value bias to horses which had run within the past five weeks (35 days):

 

 

The 50-to-77-day group here have provided the value from a win perspective. They have also provided comfortably the highest percentage of placed horses when comparing the five groups. Maybe freshening hurdlers up with this type of break is the optimum. My takeaway from this is that a medium-sized break from racing is much more a positive than a negative. Likewise, digging deeper into longer breaks, horses off the track for 91 days or more (13 weeks +) have won just three races from 181 runners with an A/E index of just 0.32.

Position Last Time Out

In handicap chases we saw that LTO winners and runners up looked the way to go taking all the data into consideration. In handicap hurdles it appears that we should primarily focus on LTO winners as the graph below illustrates when comparing A/E indices:

 

 

There is quite a significant difference in these values. Not only that, LTO winners have by far the better strike rate, both win and placed, and they have also made a blind profit to BSP. One fact to be aware of is that no LTO winner has won when returning from a layoff of 91 days or more (they are 0 from 39), correlating well with the data shared from the ‘days since last run’ section.

Trainers

Having seen the trainer data for handicap chases, I would expect a slew of low strike rates once more.  The table below is in alphabetical order with 25 runs again the minimum requirement:

 

 

Taking the group of trainers as a whole these are better figures than the chase ones. Gordon Elliott has an excellent record considering the field sizes involved, as has Dan Skelton. Alan King and the Hobbs/White combo have very poor win records, but both have been profitable backing to place on Betfair. Nigel Twiston-Davies has a poor place record on top of his 0 from 40 win performance, and might be one to swerve unless you really like one of his.

Run Style

Finally a look at the run style splits:

 

 

These are far more even than the handicap chase figures. Front runners have an edge but even if your crystal ball was in tip top shape and you had backed all early leaders pre-race, you would have made a loss to SP. Generally, looking at data for all courses, chases tend to offer front runners a much bigger edge than they do in hurdles. The Cheltenham Festival stats correlate strongly with the general findings.

Bonus Handicap Hurdle Stats

Before winding this piece up there are two additional stats I’d like to share with you regarding handicap hurdles.

Firstly, mares are rare starters in these races but when they do run, they have won 7 races from 86 for a BSP profit of £99.06 (ROI +115.2%) – their A/E index is an impressive 1.71.

Secondly, a group of horses to avoid are those aged 9 or older who have combined for just 3 wins from 203 runs, with huge losses to boot.

 

Cheltenham Festival Handicaps: Main Takeaways

This has been quite a deep dive into handicap races at the Cheltenham Festival and I hope there are some solid profit pointers in its midst. Let me finish by focusing on what I think are the key stats from each race type.

Handicap Chase Takeaways

Handicap Hurdle Takeaways

 

*

The Cheltenham Festival handicaps are some of the most challenging wagering puzzles in the entire racing calendar. Finding winners is tough, and requires luck as well as good judgement. I hope that the snippets above will put you on the right side of the ledger come next Friday evening.

- DR

Roving Reports: Not Long Now

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A week today (or tomorrow, if our esteemed editor publishes on Monday) we’ll all be like kids at Christmas as the Cheltenham Festival begins, writes David Massey. Money in our pockets and hope in our hearts, we’ll attack the week as if it’s the only show in town and racing doesn’t exist for the other fifty-one weeks of the year, only to watch those ante-post dockets go up in flames one-by-one as something you hadn’t even considered goes sailing by your good thing at the top of the hill, leaving yours eating trail dust. 

Not that there’ll be much dust around, with the forecast going no better than soft and, depending on which long-range weather forecast you’re looking at, it’s either going to tip down during the Festival, or it’ll be as dry as a bone, cold, with minus temperatures at night. I like weather forecasters, as they make us racing tipsters look like we’re on solid ground with their weekly absolute guess-ups. Maybe I’ll have a go at the weather next week and Sarah Keith-Lucas can try and find the winner of the Ultima, see how she likes those apples. 

Anyway, I have been around and about for the last couple of weeks, with work trips to Market Rasen and Doncaster with the Paul Johnson firm, Southwell for their Winter Derby day with S&D Bets, and Hereford and Newbury with MT Racing. That was my yearly outing to Hereford: with two members of the firm sunning themselves in Barbados it means I get the call up. Hereford, much like Fakenham and Great Yarmouth, is three-and-a-half hours from anywhere in the United Kingdom, and whilst a lot of the rain has dissipated from north of the Midlands, it’s clear from the drive down that they’re still struggling around Hereford and Worcestershire. Fields turned into duckponds, and the ones surrounding Hereford can’t be seen for floodwater. I’m amazed it was even on. Fair play to the groundstaff. 

There are no fewer than 15 bookmakers turning up for what is, after all, just a normal weekend meeting but the crowd is a good one and there’s enough business for all. I’d forgotten how much the people of Hereford love a forecast - I stuck it up on the lightboard for the first race, a four-runner handicap chase, and I don’t take much less on the forecast than I do on the actual race itself. Compare that to Newbury last Saturday where I put the forecast up for the opener and didn’t take so much as a washer on it. Strange. 

The race is off, and there’s early drama with a faller which brings another down. Phil (Cashmore Racing) three doors down from me is scratching his head. “How has this happened?” he bemoans. “I was against Burrows Park and that’s been brought down, so I’m going to win on the race. But look at this,” he says, pointing to his forecast book. “I’m going to lose all that whatever happens, the only forecasts I’ve laid are the two left standing!” Sometimes, in this game, you can be right, and still not get paid. 

Five out of seven favourites win on the afternoon, and one of the other winners, Bertie B, is 12s into 7s, so you really don’t need me to tell you how the afternoon went for the majority of the books. 

Southwell on Winter Derby day saw a hundred members of the public let in for the first time since it (almost) went behind closed doors after the Storm Babet floods last year. There’s still reduced facilities at Southwell, with the downstairs grandstand out of action (and will be for a while yet) but tickets went quickly enough, I’m told, and it is nice to have a bit more of an atmosphere about the place. The winter nights are bad enough even when things are “normal”, for want of a better word, but with only owners and trainers there over the winter, what tends to happen is there’s a few racing people at the start of the meeting but they drift away once their horse has run. By the time you get to the last two races you’ve got a few annual members left, and maybe twenty others. If an owner has a monkey on, you take the bet, shut your eyes and hope. 

The hundred that did turn up were mostly families with children, looking to enjoy an afternoon’s racing and a bit of fresh air. As such, small money, but enough of it around to make a decent book. Results were mixed, a few jollies going in but the worst result for many was Rose’aid finishing third at 125-1 in one of the maidens. Head in hands stuff for the Stevie Stretch firm, who laid £50 ew to one punter and a tenner each-way to another. Oof. 

Newbury on Saturday saw another of the Invades student days. Before we all start slagging it off again, I’ve got some positive words to say about these days now. The students themselves, as they go to more and more of these racecourse days, are learning what it’s all about and as such, behave themselves very well, in the main, and now know how to place a bet. Yes, it’s almost guaranteed they’ll want £2.50ew on a debit card but so be it, if that’s how it’s going to be. It’s harder work but they know what they’re doing now, and have become easier to process - if you'll excuse the phrase - when placing their wagers. 

As David Johnson, from the Paul Johnson firm, rightly pointed out to me, there have been 11,000 students at Doncaster over this weekend, 6,000 on the Saturday and 5,000 on the Sunday. If we can get a 10% retention rate on those students that's 1,100 racing fans you’ve got, hopefully for life. David is an angry middle-aged man these days - he gets more like Michael Douglas in Falling Down with every passing month - but he comes out with the odd pearl of wisdom every now and then, and he’s spot on here. 

Anyway, it’s all well and good me saying all this as I get the luxury of the rails at Newbury and don’t have to deal with the students, all of whom are behind me in the Dubai Millennium hall! After the usual quiet start on the first (see earlier comment about the forecast, a waste of time) it picks up nicely, and there are a few decent bets flying about. Sadly one of them is on the winner, Heltenham, with one punter having £100 on, but it’s a small winning race all the same. 

Bucephalus is almost a skinner, with most punters avoiding it as they can’t pronounce it, and we go the right way with Spring Note too. I watch the race with one of the big firms who have laid a £6000-£4000 Brentford Hope. Two out, they’ve done their money but a mistake at the last gets him off the bridle, and he finds less than I do having climbed four flights of stairs. Easy game...

I always joke to one customer that they are my “customer of the day” and today that’s Belinda, who has a colourful bee brooch on her coat (“it’s my nickname”, I am informed) and is having £2.50 each-way on two horses in every race. So far she’s backed Highland Hunter, Heltenham, and is collecting again after Knowhentoholdem wins the fifth race. She puts her bets on for the next, not only for herself but her aunty and best friend, neither of whom can be bothered to put their own bets on, it seems. “Ooh, I’ve got a £20 note here!” she exclaims, pulling one out of her coat pocket. I jokingly remind her it’s the one I gave her earlier, when Heltenham had won. “Oh yeah, I backed that one too, didn’t I?” she laughs. She goes on to back another winner and almost cops again in the last, but Geturguccion is just touched off by Jasmine Bliss, who went down to post like she was on wheels, and carried my tenner. Next door to me, Norman Barnes also see it go down well and immediately duck it, and push the second favourite out instead. There are bookmakers that still bet to opinion, rather than what the machine tells them - you’ve just got to find them to get the value. 

They knew. Jasmine Bliss wins and sends us, and punters, home happy. 

I’ll be at Sandown with MT on Saturday and quite possibly Warwick Sunday, but then, let the fun begin. 

See you all at Cheltenham! Best of luck to us all, we’ll need it! 

- DM

Monday Musings: Bradstocks Aiming High Once More

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There is one trainer who has held a licence for 36 seasons and who, in only one of them has he failed to train a winner, yet equally, has never reached double figures of wins in any of them, writes Tony Stafford. Any ideas?

In that time, he has won a Hennessy Gold Cup and a Cheltenham Gold Cup, both with horses bred from the same mare he bought unraced as a potential retirement interest for his father-in-law. Maybe you would be thinking he was a part-time wealthy “amateur” practitioner of the trade, but not a bit of it.

In just over two weeks’ time at Cheltenham, our hero will not be frightened to take on the might of Mullins, Henderson, Nicholls and the rest in the National Hunt Challenge Cup Amateur Jockeys’ Novice Chase over 3m6f.

Few horses get to the start of that race having won over the distance. Our man’s horse had run in only one chase, finishing third, before last week. Yet when he turned out for his second, over said distance, he was already rated 120, based on four runs over hurdles. I guarantee you when his new rating is revealed tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. on the BHA website, he will be quite a lot higher. In his case I would hate to be the handicapper!

Before Friday at Exeter – yes, we’re slowly revealing our evidence – the trainer had run six individual horses in a total of eight races this season (April to April) with no wins. To keep up the exemplary 36-year (minus one) record, the My Pension Expert Devon National Handicap Chase, only passed as fit for racing after a morning inspection, would hopefully change all that.

Step up Mark Bradstock and wife Sara, nee Lawrence, with the eight-year-old Mr Vango. Sara apparently told the Racing TV people beforehand – I didn’t see it – that he would win. He did, and how!

It wasn’t a massive field, but with two or three confirmed front-runners and all with far more experience than their gelding, it wasn’t guaranteed on first sight that he would get to the front. Get to the front he did, though, and listening again to Mike Cattermole’s commentary with accompanying pictures, you can tell his growing incredulity at what he, those at Exeter, and we around the country were witnessing.

Making all, and along with a couple of inevitable novicey errors, he strode through almost two full circuits of the galloping Haldon track in deep ground seemingly without much effort.

Halfway through the second time round the pack was still within reach but, coming to the end of the back straight and turning for home, the margin between Mr Vango and no doubt an equally disbelieving Ben Jones kept stretching. It was ten, then 20, then 30, and over last, according to Mike, he was 50 lengths clear.

The trio that was still going hadn’t even reached the penultimate fence when Mr Vango jumped the last. Neither had they arrived at the final obstacle as Ben was pulling him up. The finishing margin was 60 lengths. Foxboro, an old slowcoach who had toiled in rear all the way so hadn’t really been involved in the unequal task of trying to match strides with this galloping automaton, plodded on past two others to record a symbolic but still rewarding £6k runner-up spot, 14 lengths clear of the legless other pair.

I cannot resist a little dig at the Racing Post. After the win, Mark Bradstock’s prizemoney tally for the season is listed as £1,492 – the Exeter race alone was worth 13 grand to the winner. [Of course, geegeez has it correct at £16.5k in seasonal earnings – Ed.]

I think I should declare a slight personal interest. Sara Lawrence became Sara Oaksey when her father John inherited his late father’s titles as Lord Thevethin and Oaksey, the latter being the name he preferred to use. Since Mark, previously five years’ assistant to the great Fulke Walwyn and winner of 18 races as a jockey, took out his licence in 1989, she has been a constant vital cog in the small family outfit along with showjumping son Alfie and point-to-point rider/trainer Lily. As their web site shows, they still have limitless ambition along with unerring belief that they hold the key to developing jumping horses to their highest potential.

The mare Plaid Maid that Mark sourced won five races for John, one hurdle (probably to his annoyance) but then four in her main job over fences. It was after her racing career though that she made her mark on the sport, producing both Carruthers, their 2011 Hennessy winner, of which John was part-owner. He, sadly, died the following year.

Carruthers continued racing for Mark Bradstock for four more years then, aged 13, transferred to Sara to train in point-to-points. Over the next three years he ran 17 times for one win, with daughter Lily in the saddle each time, retiring as a 15-year-old.

I’m sure Sara and Mark have constantly wished they could have told him that Carruthers’ little brother   Coneygree had won the Cheltenham Gold Cup. I remember there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he beat Willie Mullins’ Djakadam and 14 others nine years ago next month.

Coneygree was still a novice – the first since Captain Christy in 1974 to win the Gold Cup – and did it having been unbeaten in his first three chases, at Newbury twice and Kempton. He made all the running, jumping boldly, at Cheltenham and I couldn’t help wondering last week if that might also be the recipe for success with Mr Vango if he takes his place in the field next month.

Coneygree’s path to the Gold Cup was troubled – he had almost two years off before that first chase late in 2014 because of injury. After the triumph he won one more race at Sandown in November of the following season, but that was it as far as wins go.

Plaid Maid had been bought to interest John after his retirement, as if being the leading light in the Injured Jockeys Fund for many years and an honorary member of the Jockey Club wouldn’t have been enough for most people, never mind the writing.

His father had been Chief Allied prosecutor of leading Nazi criminals at the Nuremburg War Trials and John, expected to be a lawyer – he studied law at Harvard after his initial studies at Oxford – watched the proceedings as a deeply impressionable young man.

He preferred though to become a journalist, but one that could combine writing with winning 200 races as a jumps amateur. My good luck was that, by joining the Daily Telegraph in 1972, I was able to watch at first hand the way in which he combined his art with his love of riding and horses. And I did so for the next three decades. He always greeted me with, “Hello boy!”

For many years we worked in tandem on reporting the Grand National for the Sunday Telegraph. In those days there was a limited number of telephones and we used to have the use of one room and a land line in a house called Chasandi sited dead opposite the Aintree main entrance. Brough Scott and others also had similar facilities in other rooms in the house. I think the newspapers paid for the couple’s extension!

I took my notes, attending the initial stage of the post-race press conference, then repaired to offer my version of events verbatim over the phone to readers of the Irish, Scottish, and northern editions of the paper. John’s considered, exhaustive, rounded-out and always unique version came an hour or so later and the rest of the country got his elegant turn of phrase. Mine disappeared into the ether!

One incident I’ll never forget was the time he asked me to join him while he was working for ITV at the Derby. In those days the beautiful grassy paddock (sorry Epsom, that one now isn’t a patch on it even if it lets the racegoers see the horses) was down where the racecourse stables still are now. John had a small raised cabin with a big picture window halfway down one side as he watched and spoke to the viewers.

I’m not sure I did much for him that day - it’s not as if he asked me to go get him a cup of tea and a biscuit or anything - but there’s a reason I’m fond of relating it. It was 1981, the year of Shergar, one of the greatest Derby winners but one that is remembered for what he wasn’t allowed to do rather than what he did on the racecourse or might have done at stud. Everyone before 2000 knew the name, even now you occasionally hear it in stand-up routines.

But back to Mr Vango and friends. Have a look when you get a moment at the lovely website of Mark and Sara Bradstock and you will wonder how, in these days of trainers with 300 horses to call upon, these amazing people get so few chances to show how good they are.

Coneygree gave Nico De Boinville’s career the jump start that was needed for Nicky Henderson to take notice. He was still a conditional when he won the Gold Cup. In Coneygree’s previous race he was unavailable, and Richard Johnson stepped in. Nico said: “I dreaded that he would keep the mount for the Gold Cup but when he won the Denman Chase at Newbury, Sara called to say he was my ride.”

Some family, some legacy and if Mr Vango runs and wins – he’s 25/1 with bookmakers with whom you might get on, it could encourage a few more people to support them.

Talking of support, it’s the House of Commons debate on affordability checks at Westminster Hall today. If racing is to have any chance of getting proper funding, it’s vital that the people that can wish to bet are not artificially denied the chance and the case is properly put to the proportion of MPs who are lukewarm about racing.

My sources say, even without those fatuous checks, bookmakers need shaking up, so often are even tiny bets refused. One friend tells of the Australian system or how it was when he lived there a while ago and I doubt it’s changed since.

When he was there, bookmakers were allowed on course, while off-course was their tote (called TAB) monopoly. Depending on which ring the bookie worked in at the track, he or she was compelled to lay to take out a minimum value in each respective ring.

We have the best racing in the world and the worst conversion from what’s bet on it into prize money. Getting rid of this affordability nonsense would be a first step, but much more needs to be done even when that stain on the sport is crushed, as I hope it will be. I wonder what John, or My Noble Lord, as the late John McCririck always called him, would have thought of it all!

- TS

Monday Musings: The Sound of Music?

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I realise that most people nowadays might not have more than a passing acquaintance with the 1960’s musical, The Sound of Music – although it’s part of the TV schedules every Christmas – but over this weekend I’ve had two of its best-known songs going constantly through my head, writes Tony Stafford.

Firstly, with the Festival now only four weeks away, there’s the title song which begins, well slightly amended: The hills are alive with the sound of Cheltenham.

And secondly and more appropriately for UK trainers: How do you solve a problem like Willie Mullins? (Maria, of course, speeding up problem!).

As ever, one name sticks out as the home antidote to the Willie Mullins epidemic of winners. That’s Nicky Henderson, now the wrong side of 70 but as he showed at Newbury on Saturday, he can see off the Irish maestro when he has the right horse.

Mullins didn’t bother to tackle Shishkin in the Denman Chase – it was left to a couple of Sir Alex Ferguson partnership horses, trained respectively by Paul Nicholls (Hitman) and Dan Skelton (Protektorat) to follow the Ascot-errant and still unforgiven for it Seven Barrows horse home.

From being an outstanding novice hurdler and then chaser, Shishkin has the Mullins-like career tally of 14 wins from 20 and would have made it 15 if he hadn’t lost his concentration and unseated Nico De Boinville at a messy penultimate-fence incident of which he was blameless, in the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day.

Willie kept his big boys at home, preferring instead to run most at the Dublin Festival last weekend. Gold Cup titleholder and next month’s favourite Galopin Des Champs stands firm at the head of the market at around even-money after his Irish Gold Cup win over Fastorslow, but if not quite breathing down his neck, Shishkin as a 9/1 shot doesn’t seem bad value each-way.

Mullins’ challenge for the Betfair Hurdle was a triple one and, of them, a newcomer from his favourite talent pool, ex-French Ocastle Des Mottes made a bookie-terrifying first run for the stable after a lengthy absence, but the 7/2 shot gave no indication on his French form that he had such a chance, running like it to finish only eighth. The other pair, Onlyamatteroftime, one of the best-backed on the day at 8/1, finished 18th while Alvaniy was pulled up.

Resplendent at the front of the race were the J P McManus colours, often connected to Mullins horses, but equally well-accustomed as representing Henderson. They came to the fore approaching the final flight of the Betfair Hurdle in the shape of Iberico Lord, and caught and outpaced Dan Skelton’s L’Eau Du Sud, a 28/1 shot and another in the Ferguson syndicate. They shelled out €740k for bright prospect Caldwell Potter last week. Sir Alex seemed to think they’d got a bargain - I suppose it might seem so compared with the cost of footballers these days or indeed tickets to last night’s Superbowl! Paul Nicholls will be training him.

This was the fifth win in the race for Henderson and considering he doesn’t blatantly lay out horses to benefit their handicap marks in the way that many trainers are obliged to given the state of UK prize money, he still wins stacks of them. Like Iberico Lord, they continue to improve through experience. lberico Lord has now won four of eight races and is sure to be in the field, and may be favourite, for the County Hurdle at Cheltenham. The runner-up will be at the meeting too, Dan Skelton being a wizard at winning Cheltenham handicaps, often under the noses of legions of Irish horses who clearly have been laid out for them.

I was surprised to see, on my latest excursion into the pages of Horses In Training 2023 – I always pick up the new one at Cheltenham – that while J P has 12 horses listed under the Henderson team, that represents only 8% of the trainer’s total of 142.

The next two Sound of Music songs I think apply to the same Nicky Henderson horse, not seen when expected for a warm-up race as he attempts to defend his Champion Hurdle title. Obviously for owner Michael Buckley, Henderson and De Boinville, you could say Constitution Hill is one of Their (My) Favourite Things and has Climb(ed) Every Mountain. As to Edelweiss, I’ve no idea how it fits in, except it’s a white flower and Buckley’s colours feature a white jacket.

I think my quick look through the races already priced up had nine Mullins horses at the head of their respective markets, although Ballyburn and Fact To File both have a second option. If the seven won – never mind any of the later closing races – that would be enough to take him past the century of winners at the Festival from his mark of 94.

Henderson stands 2nd on 73 and can be very hopeful with Royal Gino in the Triumph Hurdle after his easy demolition of Burdett Road in their trial over course and distance last month. The six Mullins juveniles that ran at Leopardstown last weekend have yet to show anything like that form.

Chances are spread over the four days for him, too, with Constitution Hill the banker. I cannot remember any horse being 4/1 on with a month to go in any Cheltenham race. That said, I believe he’s the best we’ve seen, so why not and the bookies are betting non-runner no bet, with no potential injury safely-value to fall back on. All set for Champion Hurdle number ten for Nicky and eat your heart out, Willie and State Man!

After the big two, Nicholls has had 48 Festival winners, but even though his stable is very solid and his jockey Harry Cobden gets the best out of everything he rides, he’s not the force of the Kauto Star/Denman era. Who could be? The old-time trainers used to spread the winners around a lot more when Cheltenham was three days of six races. Best of those was Fulke Walwyn on 40.

Next from today’s vintage comes Gordon Elliott on 37 and he will still be boiling after losing Caldwell Potter and quite a few more of his stars at the private disposal sale of the 29 horses owned by Andy and Gemma Brown, all sold without reserve at Tattersalls Ireland a week ago.

The Browns, who have a young family, have had some success over recent times but also devastating losses through injury and are taking some time out. Elliott did his best to get back his most treasured prospect, bidding €720,000 for Gigginstown House Stud, but Anthony Bromley stayed the pace to set a record for a jumper in training.

Getting back to the roll of Festival honour, of present-day trainers Jonjo O’Neil has 26, Henry de Bromhead 21 and Philip Hobbs 20. From Martin Pipe down – 34 wins – apart from Jonjo O’Neill on 26, it’s a parade of the great old-timers, showing it was never easy to win at this meeting, even more so with the fewer opportunities in their day.

Fred Winter had 28, Fred Rimell 27, Tom Dreaper, Arkle’s handler, equals Jonjo on 26, Vincent O’Brien 23 along with Bob Turnell and, from an earlier era, Ivor Anthony had 22, which bar the War would have been considerably more.

What is interesting is that Mullins has had 65 in the last ten years, which means only Henderson’s career tally matches that. The wonder is that he hasn’t done the brave thing that his peerless predecessor and compatriot Vincent O’Brien did and switch to the flat, although that could be because Ballydoyle hasn’t been available!

Vincent basically targeted the big races over jumps in the UK between 1948 and 1959, before opting out. He won three successive Champion Hurdles (all with Hatton’s Grace, 1949-51); four Cheltenham Gold Cups, three in a row 1948-50, and again in 1953 with different horses and three in the Grand National,  a hat-trick from 1953-5. In the post-War years, the present-day Supreme Novices Hurdle was run in two divisions as the Gloucestershire Hurdle. Between 1952 and 1959 O’Brien won ten!

If he’d have continued until the 1990’s rather than becoming the best flat-race trainer in the world, he would probably have set a target even Willie Mullins would never have managed to match!

  • TS