It’s a sure thing that for the vast majority of Horse Racing fans and those interested in the upcoming Cheltenham Festival, that begins on Tuesday, that they’ll be having a bet. It’s a “natural” thing to do, you study throughout the year, find horses that you think will be suited to the Cheltenham test, back them ante-post as the trials occur. As well as that, you study the night before when the declarations are released and do your form study then, finding value bets and placing them accordingly the night before or in the morning. The prices don’t fluctuate and you can get a decent bet on. But, you don’t hear the next line uttered too often…
“You don’t have to bet at Cheltenham this week”
Why? When so much of the previews, blog articles, video blogs, newspaper articles and advertisements focus on the betting aspects with money-back offers and enhanced prices, would you want to do that?
“Cheltenham is so good and competitive, you don’t need to have a bet to enjoy it”
It’s not something I do personally, but how often will you see someone say “Just a small bet for a bit of interest” or words to that effect. Generally, these are people who don’t have a big fancy and just want to watch the race. The beauty of Cheltenham is that the racing is so good anyway, with top-class graded horses and handicappers coming together, that for most of it, you wouldn’t be a National Hunt Racing fan if you couldn’t watch the racing. I won’t be betting in the Champion Hurdle, but will I still be watching them coming over the last? Absolutely! Cheltenham should be of high enough quality that you wouldn’t need to do these bets over the course of the Festival, especially if you didn’t have a strong view.
“The Cheltenham Festival is extremely difficult to win at”
Some will argue that the above statement is complete nonsense, and from a blog point of view, we’ve had very good Cheltenham’s and very bad one’s. For example.
Graham Cunningham was of course, talking about the SP’s of the winners of the Handicaps’ at last years Festival. Just on the straw poll of those numbers, finding the winners of these races is a tough enough task indeed. Obviously, one winner at those fancy prices can absolutely make your Festival, but that’s probably the wrong way of thinking about things. You obviously too have races other than handicaps, but then these are sometimes just as competitive.
“The best Bookmaker offers don’t apply to me”
It’s hardly defamatory towards the bookmakers that the best offers are aimed at new customers. It makes obvious business sense to aim these at people who have yet to register to your site, rope them in and hope they stick around to give back what they’ve likely won from their special offer. Just a quick look around the internet saw Sire De Grugy at 3/1, Quevega was 4/1 earlier in the week for new customers too and although there are appealing offers available for existing customers, I’ve the belief that the assumption that it’s a punters benefit in terms of special offers for bookmakers customers is slightly overstated, unless you haven’t exhausted your friends availability to open new accounts for you.
“Information overload in the run-up to the Festival”.
This statement can be argued that there’s so much racing, so many angles and so many horses’, that it’s not unlikely that you can find an angle that has been missed by the majority. However, a quick look on social media in the run up to Cheltenham, with multiple previews every night for seemingly weeks, means that many, many people have been exposed to multiple viewpoints, write-ups and inside information on the vast majority of the big names in all the races. The interest in Cheltenham is so huge that there’s a big enough chance that the more obvious, better value bets will have gone long before the day of the race. Not every bet can win, of course, but there’s so much information out there, so many good judges that with everyone’s eyes turned onto four days in March, there’s a huge amount of missed opportunities if you’re leaving your betting to the day of the race. I’m not saying that there isn’t such opportunities out there (more in the handicaps, where there’s lots of late doubts with which targets a horse will go for) but it is certainly much more difficult to land on a really good bet where you significantly beat the SP when betting on the day.
“There’s opportunities elsewhere when everyone else is looking at one track”
I haven’t seen it this year yet but there was often a common phrase touted about social media/forums about “What would be the big gamble at Sedgefield this year?” – The Northern track having been home to some fairly big gambles over the past few years whilst Cheltenham has been taking place. It provides an interesting conundrum, we are forever been told by “professional gamblers” to “look away from the majority view” and to find angles that others are not seeing. So, this is a much simpler task when hundreds of thousands are watching developments at Prestbury Park, while possibly a few hundred are taking a keener interest in what happens at Lingfield Park. It makes perfect sense then, not to follow the majority and instead, look to the sand and the smaller National Hunt venues, for potential betting opportunities, ones that likely will have been swallowed up by shrewder punters not distracted by Cheltenham.
“Mental fatigue”
If you put the hours in to your punting, then doing it for four days/nights straight is going to take it out of you. Unless you’re perfectly level-headed, results swings either way could effect you either way. Winning too much and you could get more reckless and careless as confidence grows, whilst a losing run could lead you to dramatically drop stakes as your confidence wanes or, the polar opposite and lose even more. The topic of staking plans is well-documented and keeping a disciplined approach is obviously key, but four consecutive days of hard form study, is possibly going to cause burnout by the time Friday’s study comes around.
To Conclude
Obviously, I have a bet and enjoy the hard-work you put in to find a winning bet etc… otherwise I wouldn’t have started up a betting blog. But, I do feel that Cheltenham Festival isn’t the “be all” and “end all” of the season and you shouldn’t be disheartened that if, for whatever reason, you can’t or don’t want to bet on every race at Cheltenham. I’ll summarise a few key ideas that I hope I’ve got across.
- The Racing is so good that you don’t *have* to bet, you can just watch the races as they’re so packed with quality anyway.
- By all means, cash in on bookmakers special offers, especially if you don’t have accounts open with some of the main firms. New customer offers are a great way to get a head-start on a bookmaker and give you some cash to “kick on” with betting post-Cheltenham. But, don’t be too drawn in, many of the offers aren’t too appealing on the maths of things from a industry side and with some bookmaker percentages on races, it’s almost worth just betting as you would normally.
- Too many eyes and too many good judges have had their paws on the Cheltenham cards over the past few months, so some cast-iron opportunities will have gone. There’s racing elsewhere, so don’t be afraid to look away from the main meetings and find something of interest at a smaller venue, where less research has taken place.
- Don’t be afraid to take one day at Cheltenham relatively easy, doing four days of study on the trot will take it out of most people and mistakes can be made and opportunities overlooked.
- Make sure you enjoy yourself when you’re having a bet, if you’re putting in “too much like hard-work” that you’re not really enjoying, and unless you’re doing it for a job/contractually obliged to, don’t be afraid to take a back-seat.
Enjoy the week whatever you do, see you at Lingfield Park on Friday?
Longshot Betting 