The weights for the handicaps at the Cheltenham Festival have been published today, so it is now time to starting looking at these races for antepost betting opportunities.
The first handicap on Tuesday is the Fred Winter Juvenile Novice Hurdle, which tends to throw up some surprises, as there is not a huge amount of form to go on and often potential outweighs ratings.
However, there are 3 trends that have emerged over the past 8 renewals which all the winners have met, namely:
Trained in Ireland
Official Rated no lower than 122
Best RPR no worse than 8 lbs lower than OR
Adopting these trends has left me with a shortlist of just 2 entries:
MADNESS D’ELLE trained by Willie Mullins who hasn’t saddled the winner of this race during the past decade
MODE AVION trained by Gordon Elliott who has saddled 3 of the last 8 winners of this race
MODE AVION also stands out like a sore thumb as he is the only entry with a RPR (134) greater than his OR (133), which suggest that he has around 7 lbs in hand of his nearest rival, which is a fairly good margin in a race where so many rivals have the potential to improve.
He achieved his best RPR winning a weak 4yo handicap by 12 lengths at Fairyhouse on Saturday, so his form is very recent, but without that win and subsequent OR hike, he probably would not have been guaranteed a run, so perhaps his connections have been targeting this race for some time?
In addition, all of his 4 runs in Ireland have been on heavy ground and Saturday was the first time that he hasn’t weakened at the end of the race, so perhaps he is open to further improvement on better ground.
Anyway enough of my marketing spiel for this horse, which I have backed each way (1/4 odds for 4 places) with William Hill (NRNB) @ 20/1.
I will return with further antepost investments as I plough my way through the handicap races.
Betting Bank now 75.82 pts (with 19.0 pts of antepost bets booked).