Our Value Bet writer looks forward to Saturday's bet365 Cambridgeshire and shows some of his working ahead of the prestigious handicap.
The bet365 Cambridgeshire is one of those premier handicap races that makes it quite hard not to pine after the past.
From the storied exploits of Hackler’s Pride and the Druid’s Lodge Confederacy at the start of the 20th century, through to the beginning of the Gosden love affair with Halling, David Elsworth’s 100/1 winner, Bronze Angel’s heroic reclaiming of the crown, and the top-weights Astro King and Liberty Lane winning the past two editions, it is a race with a remarkable history.
Shocks, gambles - the mighty Pipedreamer plunge of 2007 sticks out for me personally – conjecture around the draw, jockeys announcing themselves onto the Saturday scene. The Cambridgeshire has had the lot, frankly.
But in an ever-changing landscape, things clearly aren’t quite what they were. As recently as 2019 Newmarket were still staging a valuable consolation contest as the last race on the Friday card for ‘all’ the horses who had failed to make the cut for the weekend’s prestigious feature, but when that eventually saw only eight horses show up it became clear the Silver Cambridgeshire had to go.
Roll on half a dozen years and we could possibly be looking at a Cambridgeshire that doesn’t fill the traditional 35-runner field which would be a slightly sad indictment of the current predicament in which British racing finds itself, yet hardly something that is going to be easy to rectify in future years.
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The horse population may be thinning out as quickly as my hairline, but my appreciation of the great race still holds firm and the task at hand is how to go about trying to find this year’s winner. Or at least find a runner or two that could outperform market expectations. There is a difference, I keep having to remind myself while attempting to scramble back towards parity on the tipping front this year.
Friday’s Value Bet column will reveal all when it comes to where the music has stopped, but here are some of the main considerations I’ll be exploring over the next couple of days.
Worth the weight?
The fact two horses have been able to overcome 9st 12lb in this race in the past couple of years needs addressing. One is led to assume that either the best horses in the Cambridgeshire have been getting that bit better, or the horses below them have been of a lesser quality.
Astro King and Liberty Lane’s winning official marks of 107 and 105 respectively aren’t exactly astronomical – GM Hopkins ran in this off 112 not that long ago – so it's probably not much of a debate and just looks to be part of a growing trend that has seen proven, Group-class animals holding their own in handicaps, largely due to a dearth of progressive youngsters coming through the ranks.
Take the past five years; it’s a fairly small sample, admittedly, but in 2021 only seven horses officially rated 105 or above won UK handicaps. In 2022 that grew to 11, there were 12 who met the qualification criteria in 2023, and in 2024 Liberty Lane (105) was among a total of 19 who defied his mark or higher in such races.
Slight word of warning if you’re considering steaming into this year’s top weight, the well-credentialed, 109-rated Boiling Point who also happens to represent Liberty Lane’s trainer and owner, namely Karl Burke and Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum… that 105-plus number is down to just two so far in 2025 (subsequent City Of York winner Never So Brave being the only one on turf).
Not just a penalty-kick
A key horse for many this Saturday will be the Simon and Ed Crisford-trained three-year-old Treble Tee, who carries the mandatory 4lb penalty for his pretty easy win at Doncaster’s St Leger Festival the other week.
Effectively running off a mark of 101, that means he’s 4lb below his revised future rating of 105 but the Cambridgeshire hasn’t been a particularly happy hunting ground for penalised runners in recent years.
Since Richard Fahey’s three-year-old Third Time Lucky did manage to defy the 4lb extra and a three-week turnaround from his early-September success at Thirsk 10 years ago, we’ve had 19 horses beaten under penalties in the Cambridgeshire.
They have included a 5/1 favourite and a couple 11/2 joint-favourites, one of whom was the top-class Anmaat.
Treble Tee, one of two penalised runners this year along with recent Windsor winner Desperate Dan, has won on this track as a two-year-olds but he’s never raced beyond the bare mile so there are pros and cons with the current market leader and taking him on looks the percentage call.
Did you enjoy the trip?
The nine-furlong trip is another interesting angle. It’s occasionally referred to as a specialist distance but can it really be classed as a ‘unique test’ given there are so many horses running over eight furlongs and 10 furlongs on a daily basis?
For the record, there have been 31 handicaps run in Britain at nine furlongs (or within 20 yards either side in an attempt to account for distances around nine furlongs) since last year’s Cambridgeshire was run.
So it naturally feels like there should be plenty of relatable form in the book and our racecard duly shows seven horses with the ‘D’ to represent winning at the distance before. The Racing Post also include Orandi, presumably including his Longchamp win over 1m 110yds from 2022.
The one ‘CD’ horse in the potential line-up is Richard Hughes’ Real Gain. He’s had a bit of a chequered time of things since bought by Wathnan Racing in the lead-up to last year’s Royal Hunt Cup, and it’s fair to say things didn’t go to plan there.
Real Gain pulled James Doyle’s arms out at Goodwood the following month and probably did quite well to be beaten just over five lengths in the end but he then spent a year off the track before returning at this year’s ‘Glorious’ meeting where he posted a highly encouraging third to Rhoscolyn.
Greek Order, Fifth Column and Tribal Chief were all behind that day and, having been left on the same mark, Real Gain is going to be 4lb better off with Goodwood runner-up Ebt’s Guard, who has advertised the form by winning at Ascot’s Shergar Cup meeting.
It will be interesting to see where the Wathnan entry is drawn.
Drawing conclusions
The draw and shape of the race plays a massive part nearly every year in the Cambridgeshire.
Just about all the big-priced winners in recent seasons have benefitted to some extent from a high draw and the way the race has panned out towards the stands’ side.
Astro King (20/1) was highest of all two years ago, emerging from gate 35 en route to victory, Mick Channon’s Majestic (25/1) drawn 26 and closest to the camera among the principals late on the year before that.
Jamie Spencer produced Bedouin’s Story (40/1) to chin Anmaat among the 15 who stayed stands’ side in 2021, fellow 40/1 rag Majestic Dawn stuck tight to the rail from stall 25 under Paul Hanagan in 2020.
In 2017, only 13 of the 34 runners raced in the stands’ side group but it still threw up the winner in 50/1 chance Dolphin Vista, from stall 29.
Prince Of Johanne (40/1) came from 31 in 2011. He actually edged across to join the centre group before ending up back on the nearside rail, while in 2004 Spanish Don defied odds of 100/1 as the six-year-old came from stall 33 to beat horses drawn in 29 and 31 (the runner-up and third had SPs of 25/1).
At odds with the crowd
“It was a surprise he was 100/1. It wasn't a surprise he won.” So said the aforementioned Elsworth in the Guardian after Spanish Don popped up at a wild price 21 years ago.
It’s a line that was almost certainly delivered with accompanying wry smile, but great to hear and just the sort of quote that keeps us punters digging for gold in big-field handicaps. It is and always will be a race that throws up the occasional big-priced winner - whether they’re all that surprising to connections after the event or not.
Which is why I would always start my Cambridgeshire research by arranging the racecard by odds (highest to lowest, naturally). You can do this after Thursday morning’s final declarations by logging in to Sporting Life, hitting the Racecard+ tab, using the ‘Settings’ drop-down and toggling through the ‘Sort by:’ options.
It’s a worthwhile exercise in just about every race as overlooking bigger-priced runners after becoming smitten with something nearer the head of the market is an understandably common weakness for most bettors. From my point of view there's not much to lose and plenty to gain from a race like the Cambridgeshire.
Explore every horse, swim against the tide no matter how hard that may seem. Otherwise, you might just be doing yourself out of a Spanish Don.
Published at 1500 BST on 24/09/25
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