Tag Archive for: Fairyhouse Easter Festival

What Happens on Next Run After The Cheltenham Festival?

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.

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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



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