Cheltenham – A Guide to UK Jump Racecourses

Cheltenham Racecourses

Cheltenham Racecourse is a galloping, undulating, testing left handed track. There are two courses known as the old and new course respectively. The old course is about is about twelve furlongs in length whilst the new course is around half a furlong longer. It is also worth mentioning that the new course has only two hurdles in the last seven furlongs.

This is the home of National Hunt racing and is the number one premier racecourse for jump racing. So much so that it has its own steam railway station to take visitors to the course directly.

The Cheltenham festival is the highlight of the national hunt calendar year and takes place in the middle of March every year, it holds fourteen grade one races during the four day period. In addition, there are two grade two races and six grade three events. It is also supported by a very strong undercard with top competitive handicaps taking place each and every day.

There are four championship races, one for each day they are are the Champion Hurdle over two miles which is run on the first day of the festival, the Queen Mother Champion Chase taking place on the second day, the World Hurdle over three miles on the third day and finally what many consider the main event, that being the Gold Cup on the final day which is run just over three and a quarter miles.

Further below are some trainer angles for your consideration at the venue.

Please note: Profit and Loss figures (P/L) is based on level stakes betting of one Euro per bet to SP.

Trainer: J J O’Neil

Course: Cheltenham

Race Type: Non-Handicap Chase (Novice in status but not a pattern race)

Bets: 41 Wins: 12 Strike Rate: 29.27% P/L+56.69

Additional note; An impressive overall return to level stakes and a very decent win strike rate when you consider how competitive these races can be at the venue, often attracting the best runners from different stables competing against one another. As you would expect from a novice event they contain mainly horses of a younger age, still, there have been runners older than eight from this yard and by eliminating them from the above requirements will increase profits further as there has yet to be a winner above the age of eight.

Trainer: P F Nicholls

Course: Cheltenham

Race Type: Handicap Hurdle (Not Novice in status, grade three events only)

Bets: 34  Wins: 9 Strike Rate: 26.47% P/L+18.18

 

Additional note; This is a more specific set of circumstances, please note bracket information above. A decent overall return despite the low win strike but that is to be expected given the nature of these races. However, it is surprising that runners from this yard go off at reasonable odds when you consider how many times Paul Nicholls has been champion trainer. One way to improve on the win strike rate is to only consider horses that have had ten or less career starts in National hunt races, ie; lightly race types with the chance of improving on their current rating.