Here it is!  The four days we have all been waiting for.  The Cheltenham Festival.  The best four days in Racing.   Forget Royal Ascot.  That’s just WAGS and Wallets!  Cheltenham is the real deal.  After all, seven thousand Irishmen can’t be wrong.

How then do we go about making a profit from this marvellous feast of Racing?  With great difficulty! Oh yes the horses are top class and primed for their very best efforts, but of course that is the problem.  They’re ALL trying!  No easy introductions for future handicap marks here, just a tough, end to end gallop in every race.

The first thing to consider is the size of the field. The first race on Tuesday, the williamhill.com Supreme Novices’ Hurdle has 27 runners.  At least six of these have a serious chance of winning. The hot favourite is of course Cousin Vinny.   OK he won the bumper here last year and previous course form is important but that was a NH Flat race and he didn’t have to jump.  He can jump of course but stumbled on landing in his previous race in Ireland having already made the odd mistake. At the pace they will be travelling you have to be a fast fluent jumper and I’m not sure whether he is.  At a price of around 5/2 you’d be better off finding a couple of others to back against him at reasonable prices.

Two horse that stand out for me against the favourite are the Nicky Henderson trained Ainama and Alan Kings Medermit.  Ainama hacked up at Kempton first time out on soft in a good time (RP Top Speed 123).  On his second run he was beaten by Trenchant, another Alan King inmate, but to me that was a slowly run race for the grade and it didn’t really suit Ainama.  I think you’ll see a much better run at from this horse at Cheltenham and at around about 16/1 (with Hills) he’s worth an interest.

The same can be said for Medermit who won a Grade 2 Hurdle at Ascot in December in a very fast TS 146.  This horse too is trading at a current 16/1.  The David Pipe Torpichan would also have to enter calculations as this horse too ran a fast time on its first run TS 129 and then hacked up at Sandown and is currently 6/1 with most firms. Check mybetting.oddschecker.com for the latest prices.

Lay Cousin Vinny for as short as you can and then trade out during the race. Back flat singles on Medermit, Torpichan and Ainama at best prices. At least you have four horses running for you and have given yourself a chance of making a profit.

Backing favourites at the Festival is usually a losing strategy, except of course for Monsieur Doumens’ incredibly talented Kasbah Bliss, which should win by half the track provided that Punchestown doesn’t spoil the party.

Brian Marshall

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