Cheltenham Festival - general trends and betting strategy

Festival General Information
Those who have purchased this Bulletin in previous years will know that when it comes to finding winners at the Cheltenham Festival there are some important Festival trends to take account of. These are:-
·         The performance of ”Last Time Out” (LTO) winners;
·         Weight carried in handicaps;
·         The number of days since a horse last ran.

I am aware that there are a number of highly publicised and promoted Cheltenham Festival publications focussing on “trends”. In previous years, I’ve been where you are now and I’ve bought these publications and read them till the print has worn off. What I’ve found (from personal experience) is that when looking at past results for potential winner-finding trends, it is important to realise that trends are not the be-all and end-all of success, no matter what race you are assessing.

I believe that the best way to use trends is to let them assist you in producing a shortlist of horses for a particular race. That way you can focus your form-study.

For instance, if faced with a 20+ runner handicap, you want to be able to reduce that field to a shortlist of perhaps 5 potential candidates for your wager. By using trends in this way you can reduce the horses per race that you have to assess and, then, you have more time available not only to appraise these shortlisted runners in more depth, but also to appraise more races.

The performance of “Last Time Out” (LTO) winners
Of the 290 races run since 2002 (the year after we lost the Festival to Foot & Mouth disease), 164 races have been won by a horse that was a “Last Time Out” (LTO) winner.
That is a 56.55% strike- rate.
If you consider that LTO runners taking part represent probably less than 30% of all the entries, it is an impact value that cannot be ignored.
In 2013, that trend continued unabated with 16 of the 27 races (over 59%) being won by a LTO winner.
It seems simple (the best ideas usually are) but Last Time Out winners must be your 1st port of call.

The number of days since a horse last ran
The 3rd significant factor to consider, after LTO form and weight carried, is the number of days since a previous race run. This is a factor that I have made a lot of noise about ever since I’ve started writing this bulletin, and I’ve noticed that another high circulation Cheltenham guide is now including the days since a horse last ran as part of its information.

Essentially, virtually every winner at the Festival will have its final preparatory race between Christmas Day and Valentines Day before the Festival. It seems a wide range but essentially it is quite narrow. Why is it significant? Well, for normal day-to-day racing it is more beneficial to have a recent run within the previous 28-days as this is of great benefit in establishing race-fitness. However, the Cheltenham Festival virtually stands this trend on its head as, since 2002, the average period that has elapsed since a Festival race winner’s previous race, is 45 days.

It seems clear that a Festival winner needs to not only be able be fresh on the day but, perhaps more to the point, be specially prepared for the Festival.

Of the 290 races run since 2002, just 44 were won by a horse which ran its latest race in the previous year to the Festival. If you adjust the average period of 45 days by removing those 44 winners from the calculation, the remaining 246 winners last ran on average 37 days prior to their Festival engagement.

For your information, 17 of those 44 winners (that last ran in the previous year) ran their previous race between Boxing Day (26th December) and New Year’s Eve (31st December). So, only 27 of the 290 winners in the past 12 years had run their previous race prior to Christmas Day before the Festival.

As such, I would suggest that it takes some effort to prepare a horse to win at the Festival off a break from racing beyond the previous Christmas, which is approximately 84 days (12 weeks) earlier. This factor acquires greater significance when you consider (a) which of the Festival races have been won off a very long break, and (b) which horses have done the winning.

Consider some of the races in which a winner has come off a very long break to be won more than once:-
· The Mares Hurdle – Quevega has won off a break of more than 84 days 4 times.
· The Cross-Country chase – twice, Garde Champetre in 2009 and Balthazar King in 2012.
· The Foxhunter Chase – three times in 2007, 2008, and 2009.
· The “Bumper” – three times in 2003, 2007, and 2009.

Interestingly, the Coral Cup has also been won 3 times by a horse which last ran before Christmas Day the previous year (in 2006, 2008, and 2009). However, on closer inspection, on two of those occasions the period was less than 84 days:

Naiad Du Misselot won the Coral Cup on 14^th March and had his previous run 83 days earlier on 22^nd December;

and Ninetieth Minute won the Coral Cup on 11^th March and had his previous run on 21^stDecember, 80 days earlier.

It may seem like splitting hairs, but sometimes factors like this are the difference between winning and losing; backing a winner or losing on a runner-up.

In my opinion, these facts reiterate that to win a Festival race off a break of more than 84 days takes a truly exceptional effort by an exceptional horse and a set of exceptional circumstances.

Weight carried in Handicaps
The final trend to consider is weight carried in handicaps. It is probably best to look at chase handicaps and hurdle handicaps separately.

HANDICAP CHASES:

There are 5 chase handicaps at the Festival:
1. The Festival Handicap Chase run over 3m 1f & 110 yards on Day 1;
2. The Handicap Chase for Novices over 2m 4f & 110 yards on Day 2;
3. The Byrne Group Plate over 2m 4f & 110 yards on Day 3;
4. The Kim Muir Cup for Amateur Riders over 3m 1f & 110 yards on Day 3;
5. The Grand Annual Chase over 2m 110 yards on Day 4.

I’m not including the Cross-Country Chase as it is totally unique race.
 

Since 2002, those 5 handicaps have been run 57 times (the Novice Handicap Chase on Day 1 being run only 9 times since 2005).

On only 14 occasions has a horse carried 11st or more to victory.
If you consider that...
·   7 of those wins occurred in the Kim Muir Chase, which (being for Amateur Riders) is more about jockey ability than weight carried,
and
·  4 of those wins occurred in the Novices h’cap chase 2m 4f & 110 yards on Day 2 which has been suffering from handicap compression with no runners allotted to carry less than 11st for the past few years;
It is easy to assume that weight is an effective deterrent to victory in the chase handicaps at the Cheltenham Festival.

Therefore, if we take  out the Kim Muir Chase and the Novices Handicap chase, the 3 other horses to carry more than 11st to victory, were:-

· 2011 BENSALEM carried 11st 2lb to win the Festival H’cap Chase (was William Hill Trophy),
· 2008 MISTER McGOLDRICK carried 11st 7lb to win the Byrne Group Plate
· 2006 NON SO carried 11st 3lb to win the Byrne Group Plate (was Mildmay of Flete)

HANDICAP HURDLES:
For Handicap Hurdlers, weight is also significant but, over hurdles, there is a slight relaxation in the impact that weight has.

The handicap hurdles are:

1. The Coral Cup over 2m 5f run on Day 2;
2. The Fred Winter Juvenile h’cap over 2m & 110 yards run on Day 2;
3. The Pertemps Final over 3m run on Day 3;
4. The County Hurdle over 2m 1f run on Day 4;
5. The Conditional Jockeys h’cap Hurdle over 2m 4½f run on Day 4.

The Coral Cup has had 3 recent winners carrying more than 11st;
Medinas (2013) with 11st 10lb;
Spirit River (2010) with 11st 2lb; and
Sky’s The Limit (2006) with 11st 12lb. 
There have also been a couple of winners with 11st: Xenophon (2003) and Carlito Brigante (2011). Also, in 2013, Get Me Out Of Here ran 2nd with 11st 12lb.

In the Fred Winter Juvenile handicap, 4 of the 9 winners (race first run in 2005) have carried over 11st; whereas, the 3-mile Pertemps Final does not seem to have any restrictions with regards weight. Holywell won last year (2013) with 11st 4lb, and previous winners include Pharanear (1997) with 11st 9lb, and Rabhahunish (2000), Freetown (2002) and Inching Closer (2003) all with 11st 2lb, and Kadoun (2006) with 11st 7lb; the suggestion is that if a horse is good enough then it can carry the weight.
 

Other than the 2012 winner Alderwood with 11st 1lb, you have to go back to 2003 for another winner of the County Hurdle with more than 11st.

The Conditional Jockeys h’cap hurdle is a comparatively new event. It is hotly contested with numerous entries balloted out in all the 5 years it has been run. So far, all the winners have carried over 11st.

If I had to mark a line in the sand with weight in respect of hurdle races, it would be at 11st 3lb as there has been less than handful of winners carrying more than that weight in the past decade.

SUMMARY:

As such, for many years, I have focused my Cheltenham Festival form study on:-

1) The performance of ”Last Time Out” (LTO) winners;

2)  The number of days since a horse last ran - paying particular attention to those horses that had their last outing (prior to the Festival) between Christmas Day and Valentine’s Day;

3)  Weight carried in handicaps.

These are the 3 significant factors that (in my opinion) you must address first and, by applying them, you will reduce your form-study considerably. While you may miss some of the winners by concentrating on these factors (as it is the exception that proves the rule), you will avoid 95% of the losers!

The overall objective for the punter is to end the Cheltenham Festival in profit, and the best way to achieve that is to prepare a suitable foundation on which to base your wagering strategy. Some races lend themselves to an outright win wager, others to more speculative each-way wagers. Some races (due to the unpredictable nature of the results) favour an in-running strategy. Remember, it’s you who is in control – if in doubt, don’t bet!