The Cheltenham Festival is the pinnacle of the National Hunt game, so it’s about right that the races, bare some of the small-field graded races in recent times, are the most competitive we see all season writes Bradley Gibbs.
Unless you blindly follow all of the big favourites, then backing a winner or two is hard. However, there are some stats and trends that we can look at to help us on our quest to find some decent priced winners.
One such angle that should not be ignored is last-time-out-winners who won at Cheltenham.
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Across the last ten festivals, 105 horses who won at Cheltenham on their previous start have run at the festival. 19 of those runners have won. Now, that doesn’t sound like too many, but that amounts to a respectable strike rate of 19%.
It’s also worth noting that blindly backing those 105 runners (at betfair SP) would’ve yielded a tidy little profit of £45.31 to £1 stakes. Let’s face it, that’s not bad.
Not only did 19 of those 105 runners win, but a further 20 placed, meaning that 39 out of 105 either won or placed, producing a win/place strike rate of 39%.
Something for each-way backers to think about, for sure, though betting on each of those 105 runners each-way would’ve yielded a smaller overall profit of £13.19 to £1 stakes.
Of course, this may not be a recipe for success at this year’s festival, but it’s certainly food for thought, while I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that incorporating such a system won’t see you go too far wrong.
Stats from narrowingthefield.co.uk