Cheltenham 2023 thread

Had Seddon each way at 26s on Betfair.  Also had Notlongtillmay for a place earlier.

That's the festival paid for

Covered End said:

No winners today, 2nds & a 3rd, but only backed to win.
Still about £100 up overall, thanks to free bets & offers like will the Irish win on Day 1 

Yes.
I've brought forward my retirement by 30 mins on the back of my 80p win on the Irish trained horse.

PeanutsMolloy said:

early doors but Mr Incredible has jumped off - yay!

Looked very strong down the final straight. Dunboyne running on for 4th as well.

Addick Addict said:

You've got to feel sorry for those poorly handicapped Irish horses. I'm sure that they hoped for much better than the first six home in the Boodles!

Edit - my mistake. It was 6 of the first 7. Sheena West saddled the 5th. The Irish will be even more gutted/ 

This really is becoming more and more of a joke. The Irish had 9 runners in the Kim Muir out of a field of 23. The Irish occupied the first 7 places with the other two horses finishing 10th and pulled up. The British horses managed to occupy 14 of the last 16. 

This is a handicap. They are meant to be handicapped to cross the line together. The Irish have won all bar one of the handicaps so far and occupied the vast majority of places too. It really is time that the British handicapper got some sort of hold of this and started to lump them with a stone more than their Irish mark. 

Very good day today and not a bad Tuesday, scrub Wednesday.
Bring on the GC tomorrow

£250 up over the week so far which will come in very handy.

Thanks in the main to many of the tips on here!

Terrible day yesterday with not much going my way.

Better today.  Had Seddon each way at 20s. 
Stage Star at 12s.  Notlongtillmay at 80/1.  You Wear It Well at 16s.

Shiskin, Teauphoo and Luccia- all pre festival tips losing smarted a bit.

Not as much as Skybet blooding restricting my monthly tipping now as my "stakes recently have increased to much bigger than usual"!   I explained I was at Cheltenham Tuesday and always bet more during Cheltenham week 

Tomorrow looks an incredibly difficult day.  2 or 3 horses very keen in most races and not sure I know enough to split them.

Gin Coco is my only fancy currently.  Skybet paying 8 places.  That'll serve em right if it wins!  

MrOneLung said:

So is the Irish handicapper very generous and rates on the low side ? 

Sort of but this isn't necessary the fault of the Irish handicapper. There are mitigating circumstances but it definitely isn't a level playing field.

The first thing is that the Irish horses are handicapped in relation to each other so as long as they are running in the same company then it is a fair, relatively speaking, contest. The Irish, though, have tended, in recent times, to have the best horses. If you went back say 20 years or so then you would have found that the owners attached to the top stables here bought many of the French young horses as well as the Irish ones too. As time has gone on, most of all of those horses on have been bought by the Irish so they not only end up with the best of their own but the best of the overseas. There have been Cheltenham Festivals in the past where the Irish have not trained a single winner. A couple of years ago they trained 23 of the 28 winners. 

Something like 60% of National Hunt races in Britain are handicaps. In Ireland it is only about 35%. Prizemoney is also less here and this instantly outlines the issues, not only with prize money but also the types of races available and the frequency of them. Having so many of these types of races isn't good, the calendar is too clustered and the higher-class horses have a wider spread of races available, meaning they rarely have to race against each other here. Aiming a horse at one of the few festivals in Ireland means all similar horses have to compete with each other in the build-up to it, giving an accurate outlook on how good the horse is and the type of opposition it would be competitive against. For this reason, as a rule of thumb, the Irish horses can be anything between 5lb and 10lb "well in" against their British counterparts. 

Day one went ok. The rest has been crap. 

1.30 Gala Marceau
2.10 Ballyadam
2.50 Corbetts Cross
3.30 A Plus Tard
4.10 Chris’s Dream
4.40 Impervious
5.30 Mark of Gold

Fantastic day yesterday just checked my bet365 account can’t work out why £20 ew at 10’s on stage star only returned £265 can anyone help

Lossiemouth
Corbetts Cross
Ahoy Senior & Minella Indo

Small play on Milkwood

carly burn said:

10 x 20 = 200
+
2 (1/5 I'm guessing?) X 20 = 40
+ 40 stake

= £280 

Correct at 1/5 fraction - easy calc is ((10 x 1.2) + 2) x 20)

Were extra places at smaller fraction selected?