Our man takes a look at some of the more interesting Cheltenham Festival 'Specials' and finds a bet in one of the jockey markets.
Cheltenham Festival tips: Specials
1pt win Mark Walsh to be top jockey (without Paul Townend) at 4/1 (bet365) - 3/1 minimum
Biggest winning Starting Price
If you're already getting a bit tired of hearing about the countless number of 'good things' at Cheltenham this year, you'll be reassured to know there has been at least one winner that returned an SP of 25/1 or bigger at each of the past 20 Festivals, with 64 individuals meeting that criterion during the same period.
There has been the solitary 80/1 shot home in front, namely Jeff Kidder in the 2021 Fred Winter, while successful 66/1 shots have been thin on the ground too – just four winning at the old ‘double-double carpet’. We've had eight 50/1 winners, nine 40/1 winner, 24 at 33/1, just four at 28/1 and 14 at 25s.
Betfair offer 13/8 for the biggest winning SP at this year’s Festival to be 66/1 or bigger, which makes limited appeal in truth, while you can get 11/8 for over 40/1 at Ladbrokes and Coral, and a couple of smaller firms go 7/4 against under 40/1 being the biggest successful price.
For those anticipating a clean sweep for the better-fancied runners, Sky Bet are 14/1 for no winner to return an SP greater than 20/1. Food for thought ahead of what could be one of the least competitive Festivals for years, but I think we can safely move on.
Race to have the biggest winning distance
Sky Bet have quite an interesting – and highly competitive – market on the go here, their prices on the race with the biggest winning distance ranging from the National Hunt Chase at 6/1 fav to the almost inevitable 100/1 handicaps such as the Coral Cup, Martin Pipe and County Hurdle.
The Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase is another right up near the head of the betting at 7/1, with the Boodles Gold Cup 8/1 and Unibet Champion Hurdle 9/1.
The Champion Chase (10 lengths, Energumene), Champion Hurdle (nine lengths, Constitution Hill) and Gold Cup (seven lengths, Galopin Des Champs) produced the three biggest winning margins at the 2023 Festival, and it’s not too difficult to envisage a repeat winner with El Fabiolo getting close to that sort of margin in this year's Queen Mother, though fans of Jonbon and Edwardstone may think otherwise.
The Champion Hurdle could obviously produce the goods again, with or without the title-holder, although I’m not convinced the Gold Cup is going to be quite so clear cut this time, with Shishkin, Fastorslow and L’Homme Presse making Galopin Des Champs’ task look a touch harder than 12 months ago.
In fact, if there’s a bet to be had then it surely lies among the novice chases.
A messy-looking Arkle has been known to throw up a strange result or two and some costly jumping in the Turners might yield a wide-margin winner, as it did the year Galopin Des Champs came a cropper at the last to leave Bob Olinger in splendid isolation, officially 40 length ahead of Bussleton as only three finished.
That small-field angle probably holds the key again and, with Fact To File seemingly scaring off a few possible rivals in Wednesday’s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase, that race might do well to get eight or nine runners.
The three-mile Grade 1 novice is 12/1 to have the biggest winning distance of the week and I’d just about prefer that at double the odds of the National Hunt Chase for anyone looking to have an interest.
Top trainer
Willie Mullins - more on him below - is 1/8 for the top trainer award and looks unopposable with no fewer than 17 antepost favourites at the time of publication. He’s only half a dozen shy of saddling 100 Festival winners in his career after claiming six at last year’s meeting, when seeing off Gordon Elliott and Henry De Bromhead, who each had three winners.
Elliott is next in the betting this year as a general 6/1 shot, though BoyleSports have him at 12/1 and Mullins as short as 10s-on.
Top jockey
Mullins’ number one rider Paul Townend has won this gong three times in total, booting home five winners at the Festivals of 2020, 2022 and 2023.
He had to settle for just the three in 2021 when Rachael Blackmore became the first woman to win the leading jockey award after her super six winners. Townend, incidentally, finished second behind Blackmore-ridden winners in the Champion Hurdle, Baring Bingham and the Champion Bumper that week.
Townend is as short as 1/5 (Hills) to be lifting the trophy again this time around, though as big as 2/5 with bet365, and Jack Kennedy is clear of the rest at a best-priced 13/2 with Hills.
Kennedy has an awful lot to look forward to with the likes of Firefox, Brighterdaysahead and Found A Fifty holding good chances in their respective races, but if they don’t deliver then a lot could hinge on whether the jockey has picked the right one in the Stayers’ Hurdle, before Gerri Colombe in the Gold Cup.
Having missed two recent Festivals through injury, Kennedy will be determined to make the most of his opportunities but I’m not sure his book of rides is far superior to that of MARK WALSH.
Walsh is 10/1 to be top jockey but it's bet365’s 4/1 ‘without Paul Townend’ (3/1 with Sky Bet and Betfred is also perfectly fair) which really appeals as boss JP McManus looks to have assembled his strongest Festival squad for years.
Presumably Nico De Boinville will get back on Jeriko Du Reponet in the Sky Bet Supreme – though Walsh did make the trip to ride him at Doncaster in January when De Boinville was out – but regardless of that one, the Irishman is widely expected to be on Mystical Power (Baring Bingham?), Fact To File (Brown Advisory?), Capodanno (Ryanair Chase?), Majborough (Triumph Hurdle) and Dinoblue (Mares’ Chase).
Throw into the mix reigning champ Sire Du Berlais in the Stayers’ Hurdle and a plethora of fascinating handicap projects such as Saint Roi, Inothewayurthinkin and Sa Majeste (provided he doesn’t run in the Martin Pipe, of course) and you'd be hopeful Walsh might be able to find three winners at least (he's evens with Sky Bet to hit that number and 11/4 for four or more).
Perhaps that won’t be enough if Townend and Kennedy go at it hammer-and-tongs from the outset, but take the market leader out of the picture and I’m happy enough to oppose the injury-prone second-favourite, with Walsh on offer at what look like generous odds.
They think it’s all over… but is it?
I’m personally struggling to see how Mullins having somewhere approaching 10 winners at this year's Festival can be good for the game on the whole, but can it be good for a punters’ pocket in the short-term?
Stringing a bunch of the short ones together with a few live handicap chances in speculative five, six and seven-fold accumulators is an approach some people are probably finding hard to resist, but that gets quite expensive pretty swiftly and it only takes one faller or a couple of surprising no-shows for the whole endeavour to go completely pear-shaped.
But how about Mullins to win the British trainers’ title at 16/1 (bet365, Sky Bet and Paddy Power go 12s)?
He’s not exactly set about the campaign with this target in mind, far from it by the looks of things, and at the time of writing he’s 33rd in the table with £297,689 in prize money this side of the Irish Sea.
But things are about to change quite dramatically, I'm sure we can all see that coming.
There are no certainties at Cheltenham but let’s imagine Mullins were to win the Champion Hurdle, Mares’ Hurdle, Champion Chase, Brown Advisory and Gold Cup – all races in which the Closutton yard saddles short-priced favourites. That would see the thick end of a million (£995,980 to be precise) go into the pot, and he’d in all likelihood be a close fourth in the trainer’s title and potentially less than a million shy of Paul Nicholls at the head of affairs.
The five races I’ve mentioned there could easily be supplemented with another two or three (he’s just 6/4 with Sky Bet to have nine or more winners in the week), in which case it would be game on heading to Aintree.
There is £500,000 to the winner of the Grand National, a race in which Nicholls has Threeunderthrufive (33/1), Dan Skelton has Latenightpass (25/1), Galia Des Liteaux (40/1) and Le Milos (50/1), and Nicky Henderson only has Dusart (100/1) among the current top 50.
Mullins is responsible for 10 horses inside the top 37 alone, including 12/1 market leader I Am Maximus, plus Capodanno (25/1) and Meetingofthewaters (25/1), who are both quietly fancied in certain quarters ahead of their tee-up races at Cheltenham.
Incidentally, Mr Incredible, who is also among those guaranteed a run at Aintree should connections wish, has been given the option of the Midlands National at Uttoxeter on the Saturday of Cheltenham week too. So perhaps someone in the camp does have half an eye on the British prize-money opportunities away from the major festivals this spring.
Nicholls famously held Mullins at bay in the 2015-16 season, ending £97,000 in front, and the stars will need to align for those roles to be reversed this year. No trainer from an Irish base has won the British championship since Vincent O’Brien in the early 1950s, but it's clear few have been able to match Mullins' present-day fire-power.
I'll resist the urge to strike a bet, but the double-figure odds on offer seem likely to only go one way over the next dozen days.
Published at 1600 GMT on 03/03/24
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