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 following when it comes to backing up success at Cheltenham.
Shall we get down to the numbers?
Since the first Cheltenham race of the 2013/2014 season, 357 races have been run at the pre-Cheltenham Festival meetings at Prestbury Park. From those races, 71 Festival heroes have emerged that same season out of the 251 Festival races i.e. one in every five races held at Cheltenham prior to the big meeting in March produces a winner at that same season’s Festival.
You could also look at it that just over 28% of the Festival’s winners in that time had run in a race at Cheltenham earlier in the season. This number is not insubstantial, and would suggest that you would find eight winners (7.92 rounded) at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival who had run between October and January at the same track, either on the New or Old Course.
It should be no surprise to racing fans that Cheltenham’s undulating, idiosyncratic track produces a fair number of its own winners. However, the bare numbers do not give us enough insight.
What we are looking for is data to guide us directly rather than blindly. We may back eight horses throughout the week at Cheltenham in 2024, but currently all we know is that we should do that at any point. So let’s narrow it down, looking for any pointers into hurdles, fences and bumpers on one side, and novice, open, and handicap company on the other.
Hurdles
The hurdlers do not stand up to scrutiny when compared to the above average. Only 25 of the 232 hurdles races have supplied a Festival winner, which is just over one in every nine races. With this in mind, and there being 14 races over hurdles in March, it can only be expected that one or two winners over timber had run at Cheltenham earlier in the season. Or can that be expected?
Five of those 24 scorers actually went on to win over fences at the Festival, including, most surprisingly, The Real Whacker in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase having finished down the field in a Pertemps Qualifier in October.
The best race to back earlier Cheltenham winners is the Stayers’ Hurdle. Four runners in the Cleeve Hurdle have gone on to win that championship race, although only two have won both races. Otherwise, the Plate Handicap Chase has been won on three occasions by horses who had raced over hurdles at Cheltenham before March.
The biggest takeaway from the data is that you should not expect a handicap hurdle winner to have raced over a similar course and distance earlier in the season. Only five horses who had raced over hurdles at Cheltenham won a handicap at the Festival later that term, a remarkable statistic given how valued form over track and trip often is.
From a Graded race perspective, it is the novice hurdles which stand out: the Albert Bartlett, Triumph Hurdle and Supreme Novices’ Hurdle have all been won twice by horses using this model. Unowhatimeanharry and Kilbricken Storm won the first-named, Defi Du Seuil swept the board of juvenile races at Cheltenham after Peace And Co also triumphed in that Grade 1 in 2015, while both Summerville Boy and Altior had gained previous Cheltenham experience, the former having not won in two attempts.
Equally, if you are looking for which earlier meeting produces the goods, look closer to home. Seven of the 24 hurdles winners came from Trials Day, despite the fact that every other meeting is run over at least two days. As a percentage, the November meeting is therefore the least likely place to look, given only six winners came over three days there.
Chasers
The twice rearranged Clarence House has ensured that, pleasingly, exactly the same number of chases have been run as hurdles races since the start of the 2013/14 National Hunt season. However, while the hurdlers struggled to back up their form, the chasers had far less of an issue, with 52 Festival winners having contested one of the earlier 230 chases at Prestbury Park. With 13 chases at the Festival, we can expect a healthy return of three winners who have run at the track earlier that term.
Not all chases are built the same of course, and in the 18 runnings of a Cross Country handicap in November and December, eight have produced seven of the winners of the open version at the Festival. Almost all of the favourites for this year’s renewal have contested one of those handicaps, so they do make excellent trials.
Separating those out, we still have 44 winners from 212 races, a substantial increase compared to the hurdlers. Races over smaller obstacles can be more easily replicated elsewhere, but both of Cheltenham’s courses are serious jumping tests over fences. That, evidently, means that experiencing them within six months of the Festival is preferable.
One of the most notable standouts from the chasing data is the success of the open Graded 2m chases. Without the Clarence House, there is only the Grade 2 Shloer Chase run in November, but excluding this season given we haven’t yet reached the Festival, five of the nine editions of that race have produced the Champion Chase winner. Only Sprinter Sacre and Put The Kettle On did the double, while Dodging Bullets (3rd), Special Tiara (3rd) and Politologue (2nd) were all beaten in the race.
When the Clarence House is rearranged too, the small sample size produces an extraordinary result. Though only two editions have been run at the track within the last decade, they have produced three Festival winners, better than one in each running. Un De Sceaux stepped up in trip to win the Ryanair after taking the Clarence House at Cheltenham in 2017, while Special Tiara, who was a meagre fifth behind him, took a giant leap forward to win the Champion Chase. Last year saw Energumene beaten by Editeur Du Gite, but find his feet come the Festival.
The other substantial formula for success is to follow the novice handicaps. While some open novice races have had a modicum of success in this period, none has given us more than three winners in this time period. Conversely, the Timeform Novices’ Handicap, run this Saturday on Trials Day, has been responsible for more Cheltenham Festival winners than any other pre-Festival contest, with six having run in it beforehand.
Conversely, the Cotswold Chase has rapidly weakened as a Gold Cup trial. The only Cotswold winner to double up in March was Frodon, but he did so in the Ryanair. No beaten horse in the Cotswold Chase has subsequently won at the Festival.
Given the riches Cheltenham has at its scheduling disposal, this is a genuine pointer for punters to heed, though with some caution. Three of those six went on to win the now defunct novices’ handicap, though Stage Star kept up the success of the race in 2023 by winning the Grade 1 Turners’ Novices’ Chase. Even the novices’ handicap over 3m1f in December has produced three Festival winners down the line.
The open handicaps have less success, though the biggest of these races have been consistent. The Paddy Power Gold Cup, December Gold Cup, New Year’s Day Handicap and Paddy Power Handicap Chase on Trials Day have given us nine winners from their 35 total runnings, a decent haul, but a difficult form line to confidently follow.
Bumpers
No need to get overly bogged down in this section. 33 bumpers have been contested either in mares’ only or open company in our focus group, but only two winners of the Champion Bumper have emerged, those being almost as far back as we could go in Moon Racer (2015) and Ballyandy (2016). Complete Irish dominance since then has wiped the significance of the pre-Festival bumpers away.
Festival Pointers
Should Jonbon run in the rearranged Cotswold Chase, he has history on his side having run in the Shloer Chase too. When both 2m Graded contests are run at the track, they have a very strong strike rate, and they may give Jonbon an experience edge over main Champion Chase rival El Fabiolo.
Winners of this Saturday’s handicaps should be particularly worthy of note too. The novice handicap is the most successful race at producing subsequent Cheltenham heroes, so look out for the likes of Ginny’s Destiny if the Nicholls charge gives a good account of himself. Indeed, he has already won a separate such race at Cheltenham this season, so he ticks a lot of boxes.
Bumper runners cannot be expected to live up to much given the main hopes tend to stay at home in Ireland until March nowadays, but while the hurdlers have not been as successful as the chasers as per the above, look out for some chasers who may have warmed up for their season over timber. Angels Breath was second in a race that has produced two winners of the plate, and Sam Thomas’ charge is more likely to run over fences at the Festival if he gets there.
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