In last week’s opening edition of the Festival Pointers column, we learned that the rearranged Clarence House Chase points to many Cheltenham winners if run at Prestbury Park, while it can also pay to follow chasers in handicap hurdles at Cheltenham. Equally, it is worth watching out for the form of the novice handicap chases.
Now, away from Cheltenham, Joe Napier looks into closer detail at Leopardstown. Given the recent Irish dominance at the Festival, there are some punting pointers to be found.
Overview
The Irish domination of Cheltenham may only be a modern trend, but it does nevertheless point to Leopardstown being an excellent breeding ground for Festival winners. As with last week’s column, analyzing how successful Cheltenham itself is at producing winners at the Festival later that year, let’s dive straight into the bare numbers.
In all, 377 races have taken place at Leopardstown’s primary pre-Cheltenham meetings, those being at Christmas and the Dublin Racing Festival. In the latter’s case, our research includes races now run at that meeting that used to take place at Leopardstown’s January meeting.
From those 377 contests, 108 Festival winners have emerged. Compare that to 71 from 357 races at Cheltenham, and it is easy to conclude that course and distance form may be slightly overrated, and that we need only look over to Ireland for a healthy profit. A 28% strike rate over a near ten-year stretch is some going.
Such numbers can encourage punters to back blindly, but to make use of this data to the maximum, let’s look at where those winners really emerge from.
Hurdles
If we looked even more granularly into the strike rate, we would find a 28.6% success percentage from winners emerging from Leopardstown’s big meetings. When we narrow this down to the hurdlers, the strike rate is 28.9%.
You can almost perfectly align any hurdlers running at Leopardstown with all races as a whole. Similarly, while some top Graded races, such as the Grade 1 Tattersalls Ireland 50th Derby Sale Novice Hurdle won by the likes of Samcro, Klassical Dream and Sir Gerhard among seven Festival winners overall, have produced a significant number of top horses, winners emerge from everywhere at Leopardstown. This includes both vanquished horses in top company, and handicappers.
The Pertemps qualifier at the December meeting has produced six winners of the final since the 2013/14 season, none of whom had won that race. Supasundae and Banbridge both claimed much lower class handicap hurdles at the Christmas meeting before Festival success later that season, while the mares’ handicap hurdle had an extraordinary year in 2021 in which three of its participants went on to score at Cheltenham (Heaven Help Us in the Coral Cup, Telmesomethinggirl in the Mares’ Novices’ and Mrs Milner in the Pertemps Final).
Similarly, of the 33 winners at Cheltenham to have emerged from Graded hurdles at Leopardstown, only 13 won their respective races. For instance, just one of the six Festival winners to come from the 3m Christmas Hurdle actually won that contest, that being Flooring Porter in 2020/21. Just competing at a high level in Ireland qualifies you for an excellent chance of winning in March.
The likes of Lossiemouth and Farclas both overturned their losing form in the Grade 2 Spring Juvenile Hurdle to win the Triumph Hurdle a little over a month later, while both Honeysuckle and Jezki met with defeat in the Irish Champion Hurdle prior to Cheltenham victories, the former in the 2023 Mares’ Hurdle.
One race stands out as a strong counterargument to blind backing of Irish hopefuls: the Matheson Hurdle. Despite having a reputation as one of the strongest Grade 1s of the season, only one same-season Cheltenham winner has come from the race in the last decade, that being Nichols Canyon, who did not even win the race. History is firmly against the winner of that race, so good luck State Man.
Chasers
Chasers have an even better record than the hurdlers. From the 134 chases, 43 have produced a Cheltenham Festival winner that season, a strike rate of over 32%. Nearly one in three races at Leopardstown’s big meetings throughout the season boast a prospective Cheltenham Festival winner in their midst.
Conversely to the hurdlers though, you are unlikely to find many winners emerging from handicap chases. While 10 winners emerged from two individual handicap hurdles (the Pertemps qualifier and the mares’ handicap at the DRF), just nine winners have come from handicap chases at Leopardstown to win at the Festival since the 2013/14 season got underway.
One of those, Seddon last term, ran in a particularly unlikely race on the 29th December, while three of said five winners ran in the Grade 3 2m5f handicap chase on the Sunday of the DRF, and another four ran in Jerry Hannon’s favourite Paddy Power Chase at Christmas.
Finding the winner there is tricky though, with Maskada and Cause Of Causes emerging with 0s next to their name in February before winning entirely opposing races, the Grand Annual and the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase. From the Paddy Power, the form in chronological order of horses who went on to win at Cheltenham reads P005. Empire Of Dirt was responsible for the P, the ever fairly-minded Cause Of Causes produced the duck eggs, while Any Second Now was a more promising fifth before winning the Kim Muir. Basically, if you want to back the handicaps, you have to trust it as a lottery.
On the other hand, 20 of those 42 Cheltenham chase winners ran in novice or beginners’ chases at Leopardstown. Horses towards the beginning of their careers do tend to be exciting types in Ireland these days, and indeed the numbers bear this out. 11 of the 20 horses running in such races to win at the Festival also won their respective novice events.
The strongest example of this is in the Irish Arkle, in which all four to follow up at Cheltenham had won that race. Intriguingly, the two-milers have a better record if they have gone well later in the season, as only two winners of the Christmas Grade 1 novice chase make up the five horses from that contest to go on to score in March. Conversely, the three-milers tended to have fared better sooner: four of the six Cheltenham winners from the Grade 1 Neville Hotels Novices’ Chase had also won in December, but only one of the four winners of its DRF equivalent, the Ladbrokes Novice Chase over slightly shorter at 2m5f, had won that race.
Meanwhile, from an open chase perspective, some fascinating statistics arrive. Only two of the ten horses to have run in the Savills Chase or Irish Gold Cup to follow up at Cheltenham had actually won the race. In the case of the former, no Savills Chase winner then won at Cheltenham, but five of the also-rans did.
Similarly, if you are looking for the Champion Chaser, do not rely on Leopardstown. In the 15 2m Grade 1s, split between the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase and the Dublin Chase, only four horses went on to win at Cheltenham, and none of them were winners of either respective contest. Dinoblue therefore has a lot against her in her quest for that race, as may El Fabiolo if he wins at the weekend.
Bumpers
Surely we should all be backing Willie’s in the Bumper? Well, not necessarily. While five of the seven bumper runners to go onto win at Cheltenham have been trained at Closutton, the strike rate of Leopardstown bumpers to produce winners is just 16.6%, much lower than that of hurdlers or chasers. Most of Mullins’ Champion Bumper scorers have come from elsewhere with Facile Vega a notable exception having won twice at Leopardstown that season.
Festival Pointers
Do not give up on any hurdlers who find themselves beaten in some of the top hurdles races. In particular, those who finish second in the Grade 2 Spring Juvenile Hurdle this weekend can often overturn their defeats. As such, if the likes of Storm Heart or Kala Conti are beaten, they could well up their performance at the Festival. The same goes for the Grade 1 Nathaniel Lacy Novices’ Hurdle too.
Ultimately, the undoubted race to follow over timber is the Pertemps qualifier at Christmas. Six winners of the final have come from the race, all of whom were beaten, which speaks positively to the chances of the Farouk D’alene, Nine Graces and Foxy Jacks, who finished in second, third and fourth and therefore qualify if their ratings are high enough.
Over fences, whoever wins the Irish Arkle stands a fantastic chance in the Cheltenham equivalent, though it is worth looking back at the Neville Hotels Novice Chase winner, Grangeclare West, rather than forward to the 2m5f Ladbrokes Novice Chase for novice winners over further. Gold Cup and Champion Chase winners are difficult to come by too in open company, with no winners of the Savills Chase following up in the big one. Galopin Des Champs can enhance his chances if he wins the Irish Gold Cup, though.
Festival Pointers – How Many Winners Emerge from Earlier Cheltenham Races?
They say horses are for courses, but does that ring true for runners at Cheltenham. At GG, we have crunched the data to bring you the best possible pointers for betting success in March. Joe Napier has run through every single pre-Festival race in the last ten seasons to find out which races are worth…
Fri 26 Jan 2024Looking For More Racing Info? Check Out Our Racecards & Top Tips Sections
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