Altior joins the list of Cheltenham heroes with victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase

One group of runners to avoid in Grade 1 races seems to be those that ran relatively modestly or poorly last time out. Horses that finished 5th or worse on their prep run have accounted for just eight winners from 282 runners (SR 2.8%) for a hefty BSP loss of £129.01 (ROI -45.8%). Meanwhile, last day winners have secured 141 wins from 1200 runners (SR 11.8%). They, too, made a loss but nowhere near as severe, at -£50.53 (ROI -4.2%). The last decade has seen a notable uptick in performance which mirrors the type of pattern we saw earlier in terms of the increasing number of Irish runners that have started clear favourite. In that favourite data, the years 2008 to 2012 saw the smallest market leader numbers by some margin.

Goodwood on Friday: Tips and runners for every race including the King George Stakes

• If you’re a lover of figures (and we are, of course) he comes out well on both form and time.
• These tips can help bettors make informed decisions and potentially increase their chances of winning.
• What really puts me off Harper’s Brook is his record at Cheltenham where he has raced four times without beating a single rival.
• Whether it’s the Grand National, Royal Ascot, or the Derby, Get Your Tips Out remains dedicated to curating unparalleled tips and recommendations to steer punters towards success.
• With the more recent addition of betting apps, it has become easier than ever before for punters to back a horse.
• Back in fourth at Naas was Nara, who really has looked a Boodles project on her two starts on Irish shores so far.

In front of Telmesomethinggirl but largely whacked before and since this term was Heaven Help Us, winner of the Coral Cup a year ago. Like the favourite, she brings Festival-winning form to the party and her form string at this intermediate distance is 12. She seems better going left-handed and with just a little ease in the ground, conditions she’ll get here.

• 20/1 bar these, the first of which is Champ, now ten and last seen winning well in a Grade 1 hurdle.
• Amber Cottage, Cheltenham A cosy, semi-detached, holiday home built in traditional, honey-coloured Cotswold stone made even more fantastic thanks to shared facilities including an outdoor swimming pool.
• Not getting any younger at the age of seven but looked at the peak of his powers when smashing the course record at Newbury last time.

Cheltenham Festival 2021: 7 NRNB ‘Free Hits’

Paul Nicholls has a very good record in handicap hurdles, too, in contrast to his Grade 1 performance in recent seasons. But the likes of Evan Williams and Charlie Longsdon (0 from 31, 0 places, between them), Noel Meade and Dr Richard Newland (0 from 27, 3 places, collectively) are probably best passed up. Naturally, then, the other 50 winners came from horses priced at 16/1 or shorter, the 381 such runners losing just 31 points at SP, and breaking even at BSP.

• One does need to keep a weather eye on the yard’s form, however, as there have been a fair number of P’s on the recent Hendo score card.
• Edwardstone tops the pile on just about every ratings compiler’s list, and he heads the betting, too.
• I’m struggling to make a case for any of Kings Hill, Supersundae and Gold Dancer.
• However, the win strike rate for Irish runners in the five years from 2008 to 2012 was 6.8%, whereas in the past five years (2018 to 2022) it has been 9.7%.
• Sometimes the little horse who might not look much defeats the big horse.
• Willie has more than just State Man; he also saddles last year’s Triumph Hurdle winner, Vauban, and he’s an interesting contender.
• For all of the obvious upside of those ‚opening batsmen‘, their second picks have arguably more substance in the book.
• It is worth noting that nine of those 22 were priced at 7/1 or shorter.

Southwell (AW) Tips

He really had to step at a few of the obstacles, but his engine proved far superior to his other graded rivals. Connections probably have eyes on the Gold Cup 2022 after that Cheltenham Festival Day 2 Winners display. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.

Arkle Chase – Shishkin to win by six lengths-plus (10/3 Skybet)

Since 2009, the total wagered on horses has been falling, as online and mobile bookies have led the charge with other sports. This coincides with the rise of mobile betting, and underlying trends in sports betting that have seen football and tennis gain more ground. When it comes to promotions for big race events, it’s always worth shopping around. These vary between different providers and often change from year to year, so it’s usually a good idea to do some homework on the available promotions and bonus terms ahead of the bigger racing events.

Types of horse race bets

Look at how the horse is built, how he walks, his presence and demeanour. Just when you think you have a race sorted, a horse you hadn’t even considered might surprise you. Sometimes the little horse who might not look much defeats the big horse.

Free Horse Racing Tips and Trends

• Mick Fitzgerald knows the time of day at Nicky Henderson’s yard and describes Altior as a rocket who would win the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and probably the Champions League if they let him enter it.
• This doesn’t just work on all-weather or on turning tracks, by the way.
• But four, out of 54, is not a percentage on which to hang one’s wagering hat.
• That allowance was 6lb when he won at Cheltenham two starts back and still 3lb at Leopardstown but has now been eroded entirely.
• His last chase sighting was when pulling up after only six fences in the Gold Cup a year ago.

As well as showing the top sign up offers from each bookmaker, clicking the bet here button will see your selection added straight to your betslip to make your betting experience as easy as possible. The horses on the racecards are laid out in market order, with the number of the horse at the start of the line. Next to that in brackets is the stall the horse has been drawn in, a crucial bit of information.

English Spirit

Ensuring the accuracy of horse racing tips is paramount for punters seeking reliable insights. The five-timer-seeking Caius Chorister is worth throwing into the melting pot, in company with Night Of Luxury and Sheer Rocks. The evidence of that effort is that going up to six furlongs is very much the right move, and an opening British Horseracing Authority mark of 87 looks within touching distance.

10: Cross Country Steeple Chase preview – Marlborough’s preview and tips

At least, that’s my reading of this vaguest of vaguenesses. Specifically, we’ll try to conjecture a) which horses will run in the 2022 Gold Cup, and b) how they might be expected to assemble themselves through the first mile – and at what sort of an overall speed. All that means is Ireland have won five of the last six renewals of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and current market sentiment points to a sixth pot in seven years. He does finish second unnervingly frequently – he’s allowed one to pass in five of his last six chases – but otherwise is a strong box-ticker for all that he’s no Prestbury Park previous. Fitting the historical profile more snugly is the Gordon Elliott inmate, Run Wild Fred, who represents Gigginstown and is ridden by Jamie Codd. Codd has piloted the winner in three of the last six renewals where amateur jockeys contested (professionals last year due to Covid), two of the three coming for Elliott.

Cheltenham Tips

Four of them, though, were going better than the labouring evens-favourite in fifth and an upset on the scale of last year’s looked on the cards. Learn more about Steve’s work by applying for your free information pack including full results and long term statistical analysis by clicking here. Second feature from Steve analysing handicaps and ratings following his insight into his work as a professional backer.

Irish runners versus UK runners

Despite owner Michael O’Leary’s efforts to quash the hype, SAMCRO arrives with a sizeable reputation and his racecourse performances say that he deserves it. He has won all three hurdles races easily, including a Grade One at Leopardstown, and there is a strong suspicion we have yet to see just how could he is. Vision Des Flos showed the benefit of a wind operation when turning a competitive Exeter Listed race into a procession and should ensure Samcro earns his prize. Black Op represents the team that won Tuesday’s first race and they will have a solid line to novice form. Next Destination finished third in last year’s Champion Bumper here and has built on that level of form over hurdles.

Roksana – Stayers‘ Hurdle – 7/1 bet365 (NRNB, BOG) or 8/1 Sky/Fred (NRNB)

She was very impressive on Irish debut at Fairyhouse beating Zarak the Brave and backed it up at Leopardstown at Christmas before being narrowly beaten by Gala Marceau at the DRF. Lossiemouth was severely hampered at one stage and looked well beaten before staying on strongly to finish only 2.5 Lengths behind the winner. I’ve spoken historically about „the rule of two“, whereby we get past the notion that a single heavy ground win might have been in a very weak race or by some sort of fluke. Two wins affirms that a horse is definitely suited – or can at least handle – extreme going. Naturally, if the horse is two from five, it will be more compelling than if it’s two from 25! And, of course, as we should never tire of saying, the price makes the play.

This season, battle lines are drawn between Britain and Ireland and, as with the Champion Hurdle two races later, team captains are Messrs Henderson and Mullins. Willie also has Zarak The Brave, who is at least vaguely credible for the frame at a price. His form this season is 1P1, wins in the Galway Hurdle (off 145 in a field of 19 on goodish ground) and a Naas Grade 3 in a small field on soft sandwiching a flunk when he was found to have been post-race clinically abnormal. I’m not entirely sure what that means but perhaps it was a fibrillating heart; conjecture aside, if he can bring his A game he is one of the few within a stone of State Man on ratings. Although they’ve been getting closer in recent times (2nd and 4th last year), the Irish don’t have a great overall record in the Ultima (0/38 since 2007) and you have to go back to 2006 and Tony Martin’s Dun Doire to find their last winner.

Being late in the flat season, the race can be run on testing but it does usually drum up plenty of interest with good-sized fields. Once we’ve identified likely fast finishers in the field, we need to overlay the circumstances in which they recorded their fast finish on top of how we perceive today’s race will be run. If, on the other hand, there was no obvious pace horse – or a single front runner – we should probably be more interested in the 111% fast finisher, which has shown its ability to quicken takingly off a pedestrian pace.

Chase A Fortune

Hovering over  the coloured blobs in the ‚Race Speed vs Par‘ column (title unhelpfully obscured in the image above), shows the sectional percentages for our OMC (Opening / Mid-race  / Closing) format. Identifying front runners is is a challenge, but these tables articulate unequivocally why it is worth our time to attempt that act of clairvoyance. Geegeez Pace Maps, available for every race, assist considerably with the challenge. Day 2 of the Cheltenham festival has been equally as magical as day 1, as we really have been treated to some incredible action. The best meetings are broadcast on either ITV or ITV4, with racing broadcast every single Saturday afternoon, plus lots of big festival meetings (like the famous Cheltenham Festival in March) which are staged through the week.

Robin Goodfellow’s racing tips: Best bets for Wednesday, April 20

The British handicapper seems not to be on the same page with his European counterparts, ranking Irish form more highly and French form lower. On that basis, it’s easy enough to bypass Gaelic Warrior at such cramped odds and I don’t really want to be with The Tide Turns at not much bigger, though naturally I respect the chance of both. Burning Victory was the beneficiary of Goshen’s black swan event at the last in the Triumph Hurdle of 2020 and she’s travelled all over the place since. Specifically, she’s taken in the Galway Hurdle (7th), a Deauville handicap (1st), the Cesarewitch (2nd), a Navan handicap hurdle (tailed off), the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle (3rd) and that defeat of Queen’s Brook last time.

Douvan has something to prove and has not been seen since sustaining a serious injury in this race a year ago. Min, who clocked a decent time at Leopardstown last time, could prove a bigger threat. You should also think about investigating some of the many free horse racing tips that float around online. These tipsters can provide a good way to identify opportunities, and to catch wind of likely strong performers before everyone else does. Of course, you need to be quick off the mark when you get your tips through, because the longer you wait, the worse your odds will get as more punters flock to back the tip.

Let’s dive right into some of the horse racing bet types that might take your fancy. You also have the option of selecting the starting price, also listed as “SP”. This is the odds of the runner at the start of the race, and it will not always be the same as the odds that you see when you look at the site.

We now only have eight winners, from 291 runners, but an SP profit of 40 points. At BSP, for the reason highlighted above, it becomes a juicy 341 points. Those unaccessorized won 32 handicap chases from 786 runners (4.07%, the lowest in the sample).

Final day of the festival and the going remains on the good side. A cloudy day is forecast and the south-westerly breeze should see the track slightly drying through the day. We start with the Gold Cup, which has had more headlines recently for the non-runners rather than those taking part. To some extent, the development of online betting has driven unprecedented growth in horse race betting – even if the status of racing has been diminished somewhat, thanks to the explosion of football betting and tennis betting.

His progressive chase form over three miles plus is enough to put him in with a solid shout anyway, but it was his latest performance, when chasing home the smart Our Duke over 2½ miles that underlines his class. The trip would have been plenty sharp enough for Presenting Percy – he had won over 3m 5f two runs earlier – yet he traded blows with a horse that is third favourite for Friday’s Timico Gold Cup. As the coming week progresses the ground will be drying which brings a number of factors into play.

If we combine the clear favourite records of Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry De Bromhead, 39.1% of them won (54 wins from 138) for a profit of £27.25 (ROI +19.7%). The ‘rise’ of Irish runners will be a theme of this piece, and this can be seen when we look at a year by year breakdown of clear favourites that were trained in Ireland. As you can see, Bolts Up Daily the win percentage / strike rate peaked in 2016 at 33.33%, whereas 2010, 2014 and 2017 saw percentages dip under half that figure. Eight of the years would have turned a profit, seven a loss. Hence one needs to be aware that results for runners priced 6/1 or shorter are difficult to predict for a one–off Festival, 28 races always being a small sample size.

• “It was great that they thought of me and to win for them was really great.
• There will be plenty of interest in Black Corton, the mount of Bryony Frost.
• “That was a really good run, it’s just a shame to miss out.
• Making prudent decisions based on a combination of research, intuition, and rational thinking is pivotal in navigating the unpredictable nature of horse racing.
• That was his only visit to Cheltenham so he is unbeaten in one both at the track and at the Festival.
• Her market danger, Allegorie De Vassy, has a propensity to jump right at the fences, which is a cause for concern at this left-handed circuit.
• Who knows what impact the loss of key horses and the absence of the hitherto licence holder (and the new named holder) will have?

He’s been aggressively ascendant, rising from a rating of 139 at season start to his current 156; but that still leaves him with a stone and more to find when Honeysuckle’s mares‘ allowance is incorporated. The traditional pipe opener restored to its 1.30 tapes up slot and, after much hokey cokeying amongst the mega stable entries we have our list of runners and riders fixed. It’s a yes for Dysart Dynamo, Constitution Hill and Jonbon but a ’see you tomorrow‘ for Sir Gerhard. If we focus only on LTO winners, it is interesting that each LTO Graded category made a small individual profit to BSP, as did those who won a Listed contest. There is a sliding scale of strike rates as you would expect.

Nothing looks value at that sort of a price, but owner J P McManus has met his objective of getting to the Festival with a chance. He was a very smart juvenile hurdler and the Triumph winner in 2021. In the following season he was bested three times by Teahupoo at two mile trips before having a long (nearly two years) spell on the sidelines. Back this season as an older, stronger horse he’s won two of three chases, both ungraded. In between times, he was thumped in the G2 Florida Pearl over three miles.

The race is open to both sexes with the Male runners having produced a total of 21 winners from a total of 476 runners whilst the Female runners have produced 0 winners from a total of 21 runners. Every year, this popular event creates an unmatchable buzz in Cheltenham, as well as the villages that frame it. On Gold Cup day, there’s a sense of celebration in the air as bars and restaurants spill out with revellers. Mill about long enough and you might catch a glimpse of famous trainers and jockeys weaving between the racecourse and town.

Billboard Star brings Group form to the table and gets in here off a lovely racing weight. GET ready for a bit of Jamie Spencer (below) magic on CARRYTHEONE. He looks like he belongs at this level, but conditions would be a concern. English Oaks looked smart when hacking up here in the Buckingham Palace.

Better yet, they may assist in whittling fields to more manageable numbers with a view to poring over the form on the remaining runners. Ignoring the highly unpredictable handicap chase segment, there are some consistent negative factors worth keeping in mind throughout Cheltenham Festival week. 506 of the 964 starters in all-age Cheltenham Festival handicap hurdles since 2008 have been sent off at greater than 20/1. It may be safe to exclude fillies and mares in all age Cheltenham Festival handicap hurdles. (Incidentally, fillies have an excellent record in the Fred Winter).

If that’s the unpromising news, her most recent effort – when a staying on third to Royal Kahala at Leopardstown – was definitely her season best and she comes here perhaps sitting on a big one, as they say. Vying for favouritism is the first of the Closutton triumvirate, Dysart Dynamo, a buzzy front-running type who is quick, very quick. Winner of all four starts to date – two bumpers, a maiden hurdle and a Grade 2 hurdle – it is worth noting that while never seeing a rival in the two hurdle starts he took a lead in both of his bumpers before strolling home unchallenged. It may be further worth noting that the first of those was a soft ground near two-and-a-half miler, so stamina is assured. It’s hard to know exactly what he beat in the G2 but second-placed Gringo d’Aubrelle had previously been a ten length third to Stage Star in the G1 Challow over further. A strike rate of close to 1 in 5 is excellent and female LTO winners have secured a profit in Grade 1 races of £66.94 (ROI +85.8%).

KARMOLOGY looks the solid option in this competitive fillies’ handicap. She’s usually very consistent but never showed up at Yarmouth last time. Her earlier form is very useful and she can give weight and a beating to her rivals. The selection has no room for error off top-weight, but no one rides the straight course at Ascot better than Spencer. The micro-systems above will provide plenty of action for those who like a mechanical approach.

Joes Edge defied a 114 day absence in 2007 though such extended layoffs are exceptional when it comes to Ultima winners. High Definition is obviously a very high class ex-flat horse; he was favourite for the Dante as a three-year-old and ran second in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup and third in the Group 1 Coronation Cup last year. The problem is that, as obviously and unsurprisingly fast as he has been, he jumps like, well, like a Dante favourite. I think he’s very likely to be found out in a race as hot as this, especially with other pace players from the get go. Jpr One has the best domestic form but not by much; he also has a trainer in form and can handle conditions.