Graeme North looks at the Cheltenham Festival from a timefigure perspective and has a couple of selections on day three.
Cheltenham Thursday preview
As someone whose day job involves analysing race times more closely than most, I like to think I’m well placed to spot a betting opportunity where a notably impressive performance on the clock isn’t fully factored into the market, and there looks to be such a scenario in the opening race on Thursday, the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle.
Last year’s Champion Bumper winner Bambino Fever, who is fitted with a tongue tie for the first time, heads the market from old rival Oldschool Outlaw, who beat her on her reappearance at Naas in December, but it is Bambino Fever’s stable-companion FUTURE PROSPECT that interests me most at a generous 22/1.
A quick look at her profile might suggest she didn’t go on last year after making an impressive debut in a bumper at Fairyhouse, a run that saw her start favourite, well ahead of 9/1-shot Bambino Fever, for the Grade 2 Mares bumper at the Dublin Racing Festival, but she ended up continually being too keen for her own good.
Professionally ridden for the first time on her only start over hurdles so far at Naas in January, she was always to the fore and ended up winning easily in a 122 timefigure backed up by sectionals that made those achieved in the Grade 1 Ballymore Novice Hurdle won by I’ll Sort That an hour later look grossly inferior by comparison.
With Paul Townend on Bambino Fever, Harry Cobden takes the ride and has a 25% strike rate for Willie Mullins since the pair started teaming up in 2025, most notably in the Scottish Grand National aboard Captain Cody.
Jack Kennedy didn’t have his finest day in the saddle on Tuesday rather handing Lossiemouth the Champion Hurdle on a plate after setting a slow gallop, but he’ll be hoping for a possible Grade 1 double on Wodhooh in the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle and Teahupoo in the Paddy Power Stayers Hurdle.
