Cheltenham Festival Trends

Day One

The Cheltenham Festival takes place in the middle of March and is undoubtedly the biggest race meeting of the National Hunt season.

Betting on the festival races can often been made a whole lot easier and more successful, by using trends to narrow down the selection process.

I have tried to compile of record of the most profitable ones here and hope you find them useful come March.

Race by race Trends

Supreme Novices Hurdle

This is the first race of the meeting and normally attracts a large field. Experience of similar conditions is often important and flat bred runners have a good record when the ground is on the fast side of good.

No real conclusive evidence on the price of the winner here but a big priced winner is more of a possibility than in some of the other races, with horses winning at 20/1, 14/1 and 10/1 in the last ten years.

The Arkle

The Arkle tends to go to form so look for horses no shorter than 10/1. Only one winner had an sp of 10/1 or bigger in the last ten years.

Field sizes tend to be smaller here but there is a strong emphasis on jumping due to the pace of the race.

Champion Hurdle

Multiple winners are not uncommon here. Istabraq won three years in a row in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and Hardy Eustace won the race in both 2004 and 2005.

All 73 five-year-olds since 1985 have been beaten.

A very strong stat for this race is that eight of the last nine winners of the Champion Hurdle have all won at the festival previously.

National Hunt Handicap Chase

The first big handicap of the meeting and always attracts a big field. The last favourite to win was Antonin in 1994 but there has only been on winner at double figure odds since 2000.

Cross Country Handicap

The Cross Country Handicap was only added to the card in 2005. The best advice here is to look for a runner with form over this extreme course.

The Irish have won all three so far with horses that have been in the first two in the market.

Novices Handicap

Another race that was added in 2005. Not a lot to go on here, last year joint fav Gaspara won at 9/2. The two years before that winners obliged at odds of 40/1 and 20/1.

Cheltenham Festival Trends - Day Two