Ben Linfoot: The final analysis | Free betting preview and tips Cheltenham Festival 2021
Our man answers some key questions ahead of the 2021 Cheltenham Festival, revealing his best bets, a favourite to lay, handicap fancies and more.
Who is the bet of the week?
There has been a lot of talk about Bob Olinger on the preview Zooms and he’s 2/1 favourite for the Ballymore now, but that’s short, and I don’t think the market has got this one right.
Bob Olinger has looked promising this season and he was too good for the Grade 1 Lawlor’s of Naas Novice Hurdle field last time out, but he sprinted away from them off a slow gallop on heavy ground and as a piece of form it’s not the strongest in this race.
BRAVEMANSGAME has the best form, for me he has the best chance, and given he’s third best in the betting at a generous 7/2 he's the bet of the meeting.
The only horse to have beaten him this season is Soaring Glory - over two miles on good ground at Chepstow - and he went on to win the Betfair Hurdle, so there was no shame in that defeat and since stepping up in trip he has looked imperious.
He races efficiently, as he’s already a polished professional who relaxes and travels, while he jumps very well and does everything with a touch of class. He looked a Grade 1 winner in-waiting when he won at Newbury at the end of November and proved it in sensational style in the Challow.
That’s the best form in this race. He crushed a previously unbeaten Grade 2 winner in Star Gate by 10 lengths, by lengthening clear without too much persuasion from Harry Cobden, firmly giving the impression there was still plenty more to come.
We’re getting to the stage now where we can think about the ground and if it’s drying to Good to Soft on Wednesday, which is looking likely, then that plays to his strengths, too, as they’re just the sort of conditions he was running on before the turn of the year.
Challow winners have a terrible recent win strike-rate at the Festival and trainer Paul Nicholls has never won the Ballymore, either, but Bravemansgame looks just the horse to set both of those records straight.
He might well be a top-class steeplechaser in the making, but he’s got all the tools to win a Ballymore first and I’m backing him to see off the Irish raiders and land the day two opener in style.
Of all the short-priced favourites, which horse is the one you want to lay the most?
HONEYSUCKLE in the Unibet Champion Hurdle.
The dangers of taking on an unbeaten mare are obvious but I think I’ll have plenty running for me the way this might pan out.
With the ground looking like being better than she’s used to it’s possible she’ll have to run faster than she’s ever gone before and the last time she was faced with a similar test of speed she wasn’t too impressive when scrambling home in the 2020 Irish Champion Hurdle on yielding ground.
This year, in the same race, she was admittedly superb, but she killed them in the middle part of the contest and I just can’t see her doing that in this Champion Hurdle considering the likely pace pressure from Goshen and Silver Streak – and possibly others.
With loads of pace on things look perfectly set up for Epatante, while Abacadabras and Sharjah are likely to have things in their favour, as well.
Rather than back anything against Honeysuckle I think I’d just rather lay the favourite in the win market and I’m half tempted to have a go at her for a place (she’s around 4/5 or less on the exchanges) just in case she bombs out completely.
That might be asking a lot, but I do think she’s vulnerable from a win perspective despite her impressive winning sequence.
It looks like a golden batch of novice chasers – do Shishkin, Envoi Allen and Monkfish all win?
I must admit, laying any of the big three is less appealing.
Shishkin looked all set to have a right fight on his hands in the Sporting Life Arkle until main rival Energumene was ruled out through injury and it’s difficult to see Allmankind, or any other horse in the field, giving him a race. He looks a class apart.
Envoi Allen has had a new trainer and new environment to deal with in the fortnight building up to the Marsh Novices’ Chase, which gives punters trying to get him beat an unexpected angle, but he’s in the weakest of the three main novice chases and defeat would be a surprise.
Monkfish will be vulnerable if he pulls as hard as he did on the first circuit in last year’s Albert Bartlett, but fences look to have made a man of him and he’s been simply brilliant since going chasing – especially last time out in the Grade 1 Flogas Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival.
Having three novice chasers rated over 160 already is highly unusual, but of course the great shame is that none of them are racing each other.
We might have to wait until next year’s Festival to see two or more of these bang heads, but there’s no getting away from how exciting they already look, with Shishkin looking every inch a future Champion Chase contender, while the other pair could develop into 2022 Gold Cup horses.
I’ll probably sit these out and just watch and enjoy, but if you want to get involved perhaps it’s a case of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’.
The treble pays just over 3/1, while Monkfish and Envoi Allen are already first and second favourites at 7/1 and 9/1, respectively, for the 2022 Cheltenham Gold Cup!
What’s your strongest fancy in the handicaps?
IMPERIAL ALCAZAR looks very solid in the Pertemps Final and he fits the strongest fancy mould even if we’re just about there when it comes to squeezing juice out of his price.
Generally 5/1, he might even drift a bit come raceday as pundits and punters look for value alternatives, but there is no doubt in my mind he deserves to be a strong favourite.
He went up 8lb for winning the qualifier at Warwick – a race that has found a few winners of the Final in recent years thanks to Holywell and Sire Du Berlais – but even that hike is conservative when it comes to putting a figure on his dominance and potential.
Entered in the Stayers’ Hurdle (as a precaution, according to trainer Fergal O’Brien, just in case the Irish couldn’t come over or something), the regard in which he is held is no secret and he could well be being talked of in Brown Advisory terms this time next year.
The Pertemps has been a good route for would-be top-level novice chasers in recent years – think Delta Work and Presenting Percy – and Imperial Alcazar is another type who looks very well treated at this stage of his career considering what he could become.
A head second to Protektorat (considered a 154-rated chaser earlier this season) on his only previous visit to Cheltenham, a patient ride from Paddy Brennan looks the required tactics once again and a career-best – and a first Festival success for his trainer – could well be forthcoming.
What about one at a bigger price in the handicaps?
I’m really warming to the claims of SAGE ADVICE in the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle on Tuesday at around 20/1.
Dr Richard Newland’s horse was really impressive on his debut at Kempton, where he accounted for Olly Murphy’s Tinnahalla by six lengths in the style of a highly-promising juvenile.
That could be an important form line, as Tinnahilla has subsequently beaten Homme Public – a horse who had previously lost to Houx Gris by a neck at Auteuil – with all of these horses in the Fred Winter reckoning.
So is Cabot Cliffs for the Skeltons, a horse that beat Sage Advice by one and a half lengths at Warwick, but after the winner boosted that form with a subsequent large-margin win at the same track Newland’s charge is better off to the tune of 10lb.
It makes you wonder why Sage Advice is 20s, as he should be much shorter considering all the above, and the answer is simply his latest run.
He was last of three in heavy ground at Fontwell, but they went no pace whatsoever and that wouldn’t have suited him, while Newland had to run him for the third time in five weeks to get him qualified for this.
I reckon he’s loads better than that and this strong traveller, that can be a bit keen, should be suited perfectly by the big field and strong pace in a Boodles.
If you ignore that qualifying run – and I’m more than happy to – he’s a right bet at 20s.
Pound for pound, is there a smaller trainer that can punch above their weight?
Judging by the last handful of Cheltenham Festivals NICK WILLIAMS’ handicappers are well worth close scrutiny.
There aren’t many more competitive spheres in racing than a Festival handicap and some good trainers have appalling strike-rates, but Williams has been priming his best chances from his small Devon yard ever since Maljimar was demoted to a supporting role in the 2009 William Hill Trophy by a possessed AP McCoy on Wichita Lineman.
After more near misses after that he broke his duck with Flying Tiger in the 2017 Fred Winter, before he finally atoned for Maljimar with Coo Star Sivola in the same race (now the Ultima) in 2018. Now flying in Festival handicaps, his Siruh Du Lac landed the Plate in 2019.
Williams has a typically small team for this year’s Festival but his two entries, both in handicaps, demand monocle-like inspection.
ONE FOR THE TEAM runs in the Ultima and he’s not dissimilar in profile to Coo Star Sivola being a novice chaser that has racked up the experience in his first campaign over fences.
He’s run up behind some good horses in Next Destination, Shan Blue and The Big Breakaway, although he was a slightly disappointing fifth in a hot renewal of the Sky Bet Chase at Doncaster last time.
Better ground could help him, and on the balance of his form he has a chance off a mark of 140 – but it has to be said he is one of a strong group of novice representation in the race and others have more convincing claims.
With that in mind it’s stablemate MOONLIGHTER that might be of most interest in the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual on Wednesday.
He’s a second-season chaser who looks at his best when racing from the front, tactics that served him well at Sandown last time despite sprawling on landing at the first.
David Bass did very well to keep the partnership intact and by the time they passed the finishing post for the first time he nudged his mount up into the lead. He was brave to see off all challengers up the hill, jumping superbly under pressure, and he was strong in the final furlong – giving hope the Grand Annual is the perfect race.
He only went up 3lb and it’s hard to think of a more perfect jockey for a swashbuckling front-runner in the Grand Annual than Bass, so it’s interesting he’s been booked for the job, and he might well have a willing partner, from a stable well used to Festival handicap success, in Moonlighter.
Can first-time headgear inspire either Altior or Santini?
It’s been a while since Nicky Henderson reached for a first-time visor in a Grade 1.
The last time was on Boxing Day 2013 when he applied the headgear to Long Run in the King George, after four runs in cheekpieces had failed to fire the-then eight-year-old on his previous four runs.
Quickly regressing at the time, no headgear switch that Henderson tried was ever likely to revive Long Run’s glory days – which included winning the Gold Cup as a six-year-old - and so it proved as he drifted away into retirement.
The V1 for SANTINI in Friday’s Wellchild Gold Cup could be the beginning of the end for him, as well, as he seems to have soured a little in the cheekpieces – which he has sported on his last four starts – the more the season has gone on.
You can absolutely see why Henderson is trying the headgear switch, though. Santini ran very well in last year’s slowly-run Gold Cup in first-time cheekpieces and he’s raced lazily this campaign, as if he’s crying out for fresh help in the accoutrement department.
Whether the new equipment can help him win a Gold Cup, I have my doubts, but if the visor does inspire his best form at least he’ll have a chance.
As for ALTIOR, he gets headgear help for the first time in his life, which is no surprise given the four-time Cheltenham Festival winner didn’t need any extra encouragement as he put together a sublime sequence of 19 successive victories.
Things are different now. He’s been seen only four times since he last won the Champion Chase two years ago and he won two just two of those, while he didn’t look himself when last seen at Kempton over Christmas.
The cheekpieces will be applied in a bid to help him travel, particularly early on where he could get rushed off his feet if he’s as lacklustre as he was at Kempton, and the feeling is he’ll need all the help Henderson can give him if he’s to keep tabs on the likes of Chacun Pour Soi.
I’m going to mention Long Run again, as he was the last horse from Seven Barrows that sported first-time cheekpieces in a championship race at Cheltenham – when he was third in the 2013 Gold Cup – but Henderson does have a Grade 1 Festival winner to his name thanks to the P1.
That was Zaynar in the 2009 Triumph Hurdle, a horse famous for getting beaten at 1/14 in the Morebattle at Kelso, and he was obviously at the other end of the age spectrum to Altior during his one and only Festival win.
Having the legs to see off the younger brigade at the age of 11 remains the big question for Altior and, while it would be the highlight of the week to see him triumph again, I fear no amount of sheepskin encouragement will make it happen.
What’s the best bet in the Championship races?
I think it’s A PLUS TARD at 5/1 in the Wellchild Cheltenham Gold Cup.
There’s no doubt that Al Boum Photo could deliver the three-peat, as he’s won the last two in very different circumstances and that versatility, as well as his freshness, could be a vital attribute.
When it comes down to splashing the cash, though, he just looks short enough at 5/2 considering he’s not that far ahead of his contemporaries – and in A Plus Tard he faces a young and improving rival with plenty in his favour.
I love that A Plus Tard had the raw speed to beat Chacun Pour Soi over 2m1f at Leopardstown in his second season over fences. That reminds me a little of Sizing John stepping out of the shadows of Douvan when he stepped up in trip a few years ago.
I love that he danced to victory by 16 lengths in the now defunct novice handicap chase at the Festival before last. He was simply brilliant that day.
And I love that he showed stamina in abundance when staying on to win the Grade 1 Savills Chase at a stiff track like Leopardstown over three miles at Christmas. The form of that race was boosted somewhat when the second home, Kemboy, went onto win the Irish Gold Cup.
He won’t be inconvenienced by the drying ground, either. In fact, there are very few flaws with him, if, like me, you’ll believe he’ll stay. I can see him tanking through this under Rachael Blackmore, conserving his energy for the finishing climb, where hopefully he can see off all challengers up the famous hill.
It would be story of the week. I think it will happen. Have a great Festival everyone.
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