Cheltenham tips: Antepost preview and best bets for December Gold Cup
Our man looks to lock in some early value ahead of next Saturday's December Gold Cup Handicap Chase at Cheltenham.
Antepost Value Bet tips: National Hunt season
1pt e.w. Simply The Betts in December Gold Cup at 20/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4)
Striking a bet on any race just a few days before the five-day entries are unveiled may seem like walking on the wild side, but I’ll make an exception in this instance as SIMPLY THE BETTS looks highly likely to stand his ground and he's great each-way value at 20/1 for Cheltenham next Saturday.
The winner of the December Gold Cup doesn’t always emerge from the Paddy Power Gold Cup run on the Old Course at the same venue the previous month, but six of the past seven scorers did contest that similar two and a half-mile contest and, having reviewed the race a number of times now, Paul Nicholls' horse is the one to take from this year’s Paddy Power after finishing seventh.
Granted, eventual third Midnight River shaped very well with this race on the more galloping New Course in mind, while Simply The Betts’ stablemate Il Ridoto is another who didn’t exactly damage his reputation in fourth behind Ga Law.
But they’re both plenty short enough for next weekend’s race and it’s worth stressing Midnight River came into last month’s feature fighting-fit after an impressive, wide-margin win at Stratford.
There’s also a case for Il Ridoto possibly being better suited to a flat track, given his winning form at Newbury last winter, and there were some suggesting he’d be even more effective dropped back to a strongly-run two miles on the back of his Paddy Power run. I’m a slightly less inclined to go along with that view but I’m not convinced he’ll love this more demanding test of stamina, whereas David Maxwell’s recruit Simply The Betts is absolutely made for the race.
His overall form on the New Course at Cheltenham reads 11252 and the fifth can be comfortably excused as it came in last season’s Cotswold Chase over the thick end of three and a quarter miles against the likes of Chantry House and Santini.
This is much more his bag and is effectively where he made a name for himself under the guidance of Harry Whittington, winning the invariably informative Timeform Novices’ Handicap Chase en route to success in the Plate at the 2020 Festival.
There’s always the danger of something more lightly-raced proving too far ahead of the assessor for horses like Simply The Betts, but it’s worth stressing he’s still only nine himself, has only ever had six starts for the champion trainer, and is now being given a proper chance from a handicapping perspective having slipped back to his last winning mark (149).
Owner/rider Maxwell might put some people off parting with their cash but, personally, I reckon you’re getting a significantly inflated price due to the horse running in these silks now, and there's no question the vast majority of negativity levelled towards the jockey, who isn’t exactly short of experience and still claims a very handy 3lb don’t forget, is misplaced.
I’d wager Maxwell bought this horse with the sole aim of winning for the first time over fences around Cheltenham (0-10 in chases, compared to a tidy 2-3 in hurdles) and, for all it’s seriously competitive, this looks one of his best shots to do just that this season.
Simply The Betts ran well for a very long way in the Paddy Power before a blunder at the last halted his momentum, and it’s not hard to see that first run back sharpening him up quite a lot.
A spot of rain wouldn’t go amiss but he copes with decent ground too and all things considered the general 20s is too big to resist ahead of the race potentially cutting up on Monday.
Published at 1240 GMT on 01/12/22
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