Glenfarclas Handicap Chase tips
The eighth running of the Festival Cross Country Handicap Chase, around the eclectic fences and turns on the inside of the two main courses at Prestbury Park and the overriding feature is that we are still waiting for an English winner. If there is an Irish banker at the Festival it may not be Hurricane Fly or Quevega but for the team from across the Irish Sea to have the winner of this event.
Enda Bolger has taken four of the previous seven runnings but he hasn’t produced a winner in the past two years and with Willie Mullins starting to take a keen interest in the event he may be made to wait again for a victory in this race. People looking for tips for racing should remember this.
From a punters point of view it’s also comforting to see the first three in the betting producing all but one winner of this race, the exception coming in 2010 with the Michael Hourigan trained A New Story taking the race at 25/1 – still an Irish winner though!. One of the other stronger statistics that surround the race is that younger horses really struggle over this course and in this race and we would take extra special care with any contenders that are eight or younger. Fans of Cheltenham betting need to bear this in mind.
On such a course as this experience can be vital and the best guides to the race have proved to be the cross-country handicap that is run at Cheltenham in December. Garde Champetre who has twice won this race was victorious in that race although it must be noted this year that seven horses took the wrong course in the latter stages of that contest. If you want an Irish race that has provided a good guide then it must be the P.P. Hogan Chase at Punchestown in February, that was won by Scotsirish this year from Garde Champetre, those two are sure to feature in March over the twists, turns, banks and fences of Cheltenham’s Cross-Country course.
