Cheltenham Trends analyst Matt Tombs is back with his first article of 2025, which looks at the Cheltenham Trials leaderboard…
Each week on the Matchbook Cheltenham Trail with Daniel Hussey & Donn McClean I talk about how good a guide some of the races we’re reviewing have been for the Festival.
This article aims to highlight the most profitable ‘trials’ to follow at the Festival – and to analyse some of the Festival contenders from those races this season. The emphasis is on backing under-bet horses because the form of the trial itself tends to be under-estimated – not seeking out the ‘best’ trials.
For example, the race that has produced the most Cheltenham Festival winners this century is the King George, (17). However if you’d backed the King George winners at SP at the Festival you’d have lost 14% of your betting bank; if you’d backed King George runners you’d have lost 29%. It’s been an excellent trial in terms of producing Festival winners but they tend to be well found in the market – and its profit we’re looking for, not maximising the chance of finding a winner.
I’ve set out the leaderboard of the 10 most profitable trials below. Some races are simply trials for a specific Festival race but some of the strongest form is often a good guide to several Festival races.
The grid below is therefore based on all runners at the Festival – set out in profitability order from backing runners blind at SP this century. To qualify the trial has to have produced at least 5 winners during that period. (Not all the trials existed in 1999/00, in which case the year they began is in the second column.)
I’ve picked out some of these races where they look to have featured strong contenders for this year’s Festival:
This has been run at between 2m6f and 3m at different times, (currently 2m7f,) and part of the reason it’s been such profitable form to follow is that punters tend to regard novice hurdlers running at around 3m over the winter as slow old boats.
Every year in the Albert Bartlett punters get sucked into backing horses with flashy form, often in Grade 1s over intermediate trips – and they typically get outstayed by horses that have been plying their trade at staying trips, (9 of the last 10 winners had run over 2m7f or further over hurdles).
With the ground normally deep at Limerick at Christmas this tends to be a proper test of stamina, albeit usually more steadily run than the Albert Bartlett.
In the early years of the Albert Bartlett, when the Irish novices weren’t as strong, it was the winners, (who often outclassed relatively shallow opposition at Limerick,) that won the Albert Bartlett. With so many of the best novices in Ireland now the Dorans Pride has become a deeper race – the last 2 Albert Bartlett winners it has produced, Stellar Story & Vanillier, were beaten at Limerick. Runners are 5/25 in the Albert Bartlett – 65pt (260%) profit.
The Big Westerner was an authoritative winner at Christmas looking to relish jumping hurdles and taking her career record to 3/3 in a point and 2 hurdles races. A few years ago it was horses with stacks of experience that were winning the Albert Bartlett but that’s changed and Henry trained Minella Indo to win this off 2 hurdles runs. She’s 11.0 for the Albert Bartlett and whilst it is one of the few Grade 1s I don’t tend to bet in ante-post, she looks a leading contender.
Even though they were comfortably beaten I wouldn’t write the others off too quickly. As well as the Albert Bartlett it’s worth keeping the Pertemps Final in mind. Given the qualification structure there are typically far fewer first season hurdlers in the Pertemps than the other open handicaps – but those who do line up are therefore often taking on more exposed sorts than in the other Festival handicaps.
Gordon Elliott has got the required 5 hurdles runs into both Minella Sixo and Prends Garde A Toi and it would be no surprise if he tries to qualify them for the Pertemps Final – Delta Work won it for Gordon after finishing second in the Dorans Pride.
In the Champion Chase runners are 6/25 – 19pt (75%) profit. Only 2 of those 6 won the Shloer, 3 of the other 4 Champion Chase winners turning the form round with the Shloer winner in March.
With Jonbon having a 100% record against Edwardstone after 6 clashes, it’s very hard to see the tables being turned in the Champion Chase. But then it wasn’t easy to see Politologue turning the tables on Defi Du Seuil who, like Jonbon, had then gone on to win the Tingle Creek and Clarence House.
There is a trend building in the Champion Chase of big guns either being scratched late on or bombing out – recent history suggests Edwardstone isn’t the no-hoper his odds of 51.0 suggest.
This season it was run as the Racing Post Long Distance Novice Chase, on 26th December. As power has shifted westwards across the Irish Sea this has become a stronger guide to the Festival. It has produced a Festival winner in 9 of the last 15 seasons, albeit 5 of those 11 winners were in the National Hunt Chase, which is now a handicap.
It’s produced 4 Broadway winners from 15 runners during that period – 17pt (113%) profit, 5 of the 11 losers being placed. Croke Park followed up his Drinmore win in gritty style in the fog, although Better Days Ahead was in front shortly after the line and may have passed the post first had he not hung in behind the winner. Croke Park then chased Ballyburn home over 2m5½f at DRF. Croke Park is 13.0 and Better Days Ahead 15.0 for the Broadway and, given their Fort Leney form, should be on your shortlist in an open looking year.
This Grade 2, run as a Grade 1 between 2005-13, is one of those contests that is a strong event but not for a specific Festival race. Run over 2m4f, it has produced 2 Supreme winners, 2 Turners winners and an Albert Bartlett winner. Runners in Grade 1 novice hurdles at the Festival are 5/38 – 40pt (104%) profit.
Only 2 of the 5 won at Navan, which suggests it’s not just The Yellow Clay who should be under consideration. He is headed for the Turners and whilst 2m graded form has been the key guide to that race, The Yellow Clay looks to have plenty of pace and 9.0 looks about right.
Fleur In The Park was a neck second at Navan and looked the likely winner for much of the way in the Dorans Pride before perhaps not getting home. He’d need 1 more hurdles run to qualify for the Martin Pipe, which Better Days Ahead took after finishing 4th in the Navan Novice Hurdle last season. Rated 137 in Ireland he ought to be in the right place in the handicap for that race.
I doubt the Cleeve will produce any Stayers Hurdle contenders but its also been used as a stepping stone to handicap chases. Timing-wise it fits in perfectly as a final prep and suits horses whose chase marks trainers want to protect.
Since the Cleeve became a 3m race in 2005, runners in the Ultima are 4/10 – 49pt (490%) profit. Neil Mullholland used it as a prep for The Druid’s Nephew before his Ultima win in 2015 and for The Young Master who was 3rd in the Ultima in 2016.
In the fourth episode of this season’s Cheltenham Trail I discussed Neil running 133-rated chaser Transmission who was never involved but stayed on nicely to be beaten 18½l. Neil had previously said the plan for him is the new handicap version of the National Hunt Chase and there’s no reason why the Cleeve wouldn’t work equally well as a prep for that as it has done for the Ultima.
It is a sign of the emphasis placed on jump racing being a spring sport rather than a winter sport these days that the Royal Bond was bizarrely downgraded to a Grade 2 this season. That’s despite having produced 9 Grade 1 novice hurdle winners at the Festival this century, including 4 in the previous 8 seasons. The Brave Inca, (now run over 2m at DRF,) is the only novice hurdle that has been a stronger Festival guide.
The Royal Bond is an illustration of the punting maxim that ‘the best novice in the autumn is not necessarily the best in the spring.’ Only 4 of those 9 won at Fairyhouse and only 2 of the 5 Supreme winners were doing the double.
History therefore gives some hope to Romeo Coolio who was turned over at 1.5 at Fairyhouse. He’s since run away with the Future Champions and, if you forgive his Royal Bond run, 7.0 looks a fair price for the Supreme.
6 of the last 9 Pertemps Final winners ran in the qualifier at Leopardstown at Christmas, 5 of them qualifying there. This century runners in the Pertemps Final are 8/72 – 56pt (78%) profit. Since the ‘finish in the first 6 rule’ was introduced in 2015/16 the record is even better – 6/29 – 37pt (128%) profit.
With:
There aren’t too many to consider.
In the first episode of this season’s Cheltenham Trail I put Feet Of A Dancer up as an eye-catcher after she was 4½l 3rd off 130 in the Leopardstown Qualifier. At first sight it may look as if she was a questionable stayer but she was keen, ridden with plenty of light in that Qualifier. If she settled amongst horses then I’d be optimistic she’d stay.
Paul Nolan won the Pertemps Final with another mare, Mrs Milner, 4 years ago and re-watching her run in the Leopardstown Qualifier was eerily reminiscent of Feet Of A Dancer’s, albeit Mrs Milner faded more to be beaten 11½l. Feet Of A Dancer is definitely one for the shortlist for the Final.
