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Formerly considered the premier force in jumps racing, that title now looks to be bestowed on Faugheen as Sprinter Sacre hasn’t really proven that he has successfully recovered from the injury he sustained a while back.
Sire De Grugy has only been out twice this season and even he cocked it up in his opener - unseating Jamie Spencer when sent off at 10/11 and allowing the likes of Mr Mole (who lines up in this one) to hit the line first.
Right now, punters will find a very fierce competition between the likes of Nichols Canyon, Windsor Park and Outlander for the clear favourites position with all of them hovering anywhere from 7/2 to the 5/1 range. Nichols Canyon, in particular, looked good winning the Deloitte Novices Hurdle at Leopardstown back in early February and he has every chance to pull off something big here as well.
The second race of the day is the Grade 1 RSA Chase and it’s always one of the most anticipated contests of the second day’s action at the Cheltenham Festival...
What an opening day it was for the Cheltenham Festival of 2015 and it was definitely a day that will live long in the memory of many punters (and bookmakers) who were on the receiving end of some of the most fascinating results we have seen in quite some time.
It was very nearly a perfect day for the punters - with the bookmakers on the cusp of their biggest defeat ever as an industry - before Annie Power blundered at the last fence and sending Ruby Walsh (and accumulator wagers everywhere) to the ground. She had simply been travelling so well and it appeared as though just a single solitary fence stood between her...
Still without a blemish on his form card after eight career races - he’s been able to put together a great volume of work including a smashing victory at Kempton on Boxing Day when he captured the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle when sent off at a slim 4/11 price tag.
Hurricane Fly has been rolling back the years too - continuing his famous series against Jezki by getting the better of him in his first two efforts this year prior to taking the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown. Jezki returns this time but you get the feeling that Hurricane Fly will be...
The third contest of the day - the Ultima Business Solutions Handicap Chase - is a Grade 3 contest that looks to be the deepest race of the day with very few genuine standouts here even if you’re working just off the wagering. Not many are entering in a great deal of form but everybody in the mix has had a good race or two in the past.
The betting favourite right now appears to be AP McCoy and Pendra, who has been backed down to a general 6/1 with the likes of Ned Stark and The Druids Nephew all looking relatively competitive in the wagering as well with single digit prices being traded at the moment. ...
L’Ami Serge is undefeated since moving over from Auteil at the start of the season and has won his three efforts by a combined 27 lengths and that includes a Grade 1 and a Grade 2 victory. Jollyallan looks to play the role of the obvious spoiler and he’s trading at around 7/1 having just lost his last race by half a length to Garde La Victoire.
We will be playing L’Ami Serge to just nip this one with Douvan perhaps getting hampered early on and not factoring like many had originally suspected.
The biggest betting week in sports kicks off on Tuesday as the 2015 Cheltenham Festival finally gets underway and this year’s iteration of the de facto world series of jumps racing looks like it’s set to be a cracker. Much will be made of the first day and it should set the tone for the rest of the festival with the Irish looking particularly strong on the day.
We have the usual races set to run - three of which are top level stuff and one is the mares hurdle. We’ve also got two handicaps and a listed race to round things off and we’ll be paying a bit more attention to the bigger contests on...
Glens Melody has been out three times this season and has improved with each effort so far, ultimately emerging victorious in a Class 1 contest at Warwick back in early February. She was sent off on the day at a solid 8/13 price tag which looked like decent value as she romped home by a seven length margin.
She finished second in this race last year to the sensational Quevega so you can expect her to put in a real best of the rest effort and she might actually go in as a popular forecast selection played cold under Annie Power.
Continuing on with our round of Cheltenham Festival previews, we’re going to be taking an in-depth look at the OLBG Mares’ Hurdle - a race that can be very difficult to handicap effectively because of the presence of a stand-out star seemingly every year it is run.
This time along it’s no different with the sensational Annie Power looming as one of the biggest bankers of the entire Cheltenham Festival. Last time her connections were punished for opting for the harder road in the Ladbrokes World Hurdle as she was bested by More Of That....
Sire De Grugy is considered to be a general 3/1 with the bulk of European betting outfits and it will be very interesting to see what his odds do on the day of the race.
Dodging Bullets has emerged as a real wise guy selection and can be had at 5/1 these days at a few different spots. He got the better of Sprinter Sacre in his third race of the season when he was sent off at 7/2 with Noel Fehily in the irons. He had Sam Twiston-Davies up when he got the better of a ten-strong field that included the likes of Somersby.
