Tuesday Festival Trends
The Cheltenham Festival is a unique meeting run at an equally unique track and history has a habit or repeating itself and there are some strong trends that tend to repeat themselves year after year – here are some that are worth noting from the Tuesday at the Festival.
Cue Card looks set to be a short priced favourite in the opening race the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle but beware with Cue card likely to start at under 3/1, it's interesting to note that, the last four to start at under 3/1 in this race have been beaten - Sweet Wake (2006) 5/2, Amaretto Rose (2007) 2/1, Cousin Vinny (2009) 9/4 and Dunguib (2010) 4/5 - the last two Cousin Vinny and Dunguib coming from the same route as Cue Card, impressive bumper winners to meeting top-class novices with questionable form in the book.
The next
race on the opening day of the Festival has seen a very strong bias
towards class. Class tells in the Arkle - so much so that 10 of the last
11 winners have been rated 142+ over hurdles (Voy Pour Ustedes the
exception), that statistic gives leading chances Ghizao (135) and Realth
Dubh (131) problems. Medermit (158), Rock Noir (150) and Noble Alan (148) are the top three on hurdles ratings and the Cheltenham 2011 betting predictions
Festival handicaps are often a tricky conundrum and the first one on the card the Festival Handicap Chase is no exception. But help is at hand and the field can be cut to manageable proportions by following a couple of simple guidelines. None of the last 11 winners were officially rated higher than 143 and runners above that threshold should be treated with caution. Novices used to be treated with caution against their elders but they are now far more competent and three of the last seven runnings of this event have gone their way and they will no doubt attract a fair few Cheltenham 2011 bets this time around.
Finally on the Tuesday of the Festival we get to one of the strongest trends, the Irish trained runners in the Cross Country Chase – so far they have won all seven runnings of this event and it is sheer folly to ignore their runners in this event. They look all set to dominate again in a sphere that the UK based runners have yet to get to grips with.
So there you are some simple trends to consider and set you on the road to profit on Day One of the Festival.
