Cheltenham Gold Cup Pointers

The Cheltenham Festival is quite rightly installed as the pinnacle of the National Hunt season and within the four days no race is more highly prized than the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The race has a long and rich history and the roll of honour is littered with some of the greats of the chasing game, from Golden Miller who won the race on five consecutive occasions (1932-36), Bregawn leading home a 1-2-3-4-5 for trainer Michael Dickenson in 1983, the mare Dawn Run completing the Champion Hurdle/Gold Cup double in 1986, Desert Orchid’s evocative win in the mud in 1989 and then the Best Mate hat-trick (2002-2004) and of course most recently the head to heads between stable mates Kauto Star and Denman which have taken racing off the back pages and onto the front pages.

If none of those excite you then the Cheltenham Festival has clearly passed you by.

As befits the leading steeplechase of the year it is not easily won but there are some patterns and traits that can help us in our search for the winner. First of all the ideal age range is between seven and nine, the last ten year old to be victorious was Cool Dawn back in 1998 and once these chasers slip in double figures in the age stakes the edge and pace needed tends to slip away from them.

Fortunately from a punters point of view shocks in the race of late have been few and far between and all of the last ten winners of the race have started in the first three in the betting, which contrasts greatly with the previous decade. The 90s served up no less than six 16/1 plus winners, including the shock winner Norton’s Coin who was 100/1 in the Cheltenham racing betting.

One good reason to discount a horse from being your selection is one that has yet to win in the same season

Cheltenham December Meeting Review: Festival Pointers

Posted by Matt Bisogno on December 13, 2010 · 3 Comments 

Racing at Cheltenham is rarely anything other than top class, dear reader, and the weekend just passed was like a ‘mini Festival’ with so many trainers keen to get a run into so many horses when they’d normally try to avoid meeting each other prior to the March meeting.

So what did the action tell us, aside from the fact – pointed out to me numerous times – that Faasel is not quite as reliable a stick as I’d envisaged. Trying to explain to people who simply want winners the concepts of value and the long term benefits of using trends can sometimes be pointless. So, to those who just want winners, sorry but you’ll not find any guarantees of that here on any given day.

But for the vast majority of you who understand that if you generally take 14/1 about  horses that start at 11/1 (as Faasel did), you’ll come out in front.

Onwards. What did we learn at the Cheltenham December meeting? We learnt the following:

1. Spirit River is a hurdler. He hates fences, and has now fallen on both attempts in novice chase company. Anyone who takes the 20/1 with Betfred (or even the 33/1 best price with William Hill) wants their head examining. As it stands, he must be half those odds to even line up in this race, given his high class form over the smaller obstacles. And running in a 2m5f race is a curious preparation for a two mile championship contest, in any event.