The Cheltenham Festival 2012……blowing in like a HURRICANE

Hi Guys,

Richard here and back with my annual look at the Cheltenham Festival and its going to be a cracker. The title of the post was not intended as a Champion Hurdle opener but any race fan must have been imprsessed with Hurricane Fly’s performance last week and i thyink this could end up being the smallest field we have seen for many years.

As for the Gold Cup well what a mouthwatering contest this year. Sad that we have no Denman and what a horse that has been over the years but we do have King Kauto and the still highly talented but error prone Long Run. Its going to be one camp or the other for the majority of punters but I definately in the Long Run camp as if it had pinged the last in the King George would definately have got up and won. With the xtra 2 furlongs and uphill finish we are going to see two truw jumping greats and I still feel Long Run will go on and win at least another three of the Blue Riband before hanging up his shoes.

As for the World Hurdle……BORING…..YAWN……SLEEPY…….Oh and their is Big Bucks of course. Just a race to watch and savour. the only thing we can hope for is that Quevega runs in the race instead of taking the soft option of the mares hurdle but with Ruby Walsh being the regular partner it looks bloody unlikely.

Champion Chase really is anybodys guess after Sizing Europe beat Big Zeb in a training match but could their be a nay pretenders lurking in the wings.

I’ll be doing a full analysis of these races over the weekend so watch out for the next installment.

Cheers

Richard
The Longshot King

Can Ruby Do It

I was on the internet this morning and was just searching for some news about the

festival when i saw an article on another blog stating that Ruby Walsh is 66/1 to ride the

winners of the four championship races.

So i made a comment and thought i would add it as a blog post here as i think it serves as

a good lesson for punters.

If Walsh is 66/1 to win all 4 i think you need to look at that in terms of the best prices

available on the whole four. So if we were having a pound win acca we could expect to get

GBP 67 back.

But is it more beneficial to back them singly. I know prices may contract during the week

but let’s do a test

Celestial Halo 10/1 gives us 11 running onto Master Minded
Master Minded at 7/4 gives us 30.25 running onto Big Bucks
Big Bucks at 4/6 gives us 50.41 going onto Kauto Star at 5/4

……….and If Kauto Star wins then it will be GBP113.42

So any punter who takes 66/1 for Ruby to ride the BIG 4 is barmy!!!

Their you go…..maybe back the hotpots singly as i am sure different bookies will be

offering different odds to get their accounts right during the week.

Cheers

Richard
The Cheltenham Festival Blog

Can The Tank Do It

It’s not often you refer to a horse as a tank but Punjabi ‘The reigning Champion Hurdler” is just that.

This robust little fellow is one of the bravest racehorses in the jumping game and come March will be trained to the minute by his diminuative handler….Nicky Henderson.

Last year Punjabi travelled strongly throughout the race and held off the challenge of  Celestial Halo and Binocular in a pulsating finish.

This year as like last his preparation has not really gone to plan but still the horse came out at Cheltenham at the latter part of 2009 to run a great first run travelling like a winner to two out only for lack of match fitness to see him fade into fourth beaten about 9 lengths.

Come March watch out for “The Little Tank”

Richard