Cheltenham Festival 2019 Microsystems

By the time you read this, the 2019 Cheltenham Festival will be just around the corner. It is undoubtedly the highlight of the racing calendar for most owners, trainers and punters alike.

It is the only time of the year when I bet on every single race. I do this to add a bit of spice to the enjoyment of racings flagship festival, but the bottom line is I try and make a profit every year.

There are a number of ways to approach the mammoth task of selecting a decent bet in each of the 28 races spread over the 4 days. One way is to create a number of microsystems based on horses and trainers past performance and that is what I am aiming at this year.

By concentrating on the most successful trainers it is possible to uncover the profiles of runners who fit the bill of a “Cheltenham horse”.

In this month’s article, I will share with you a number of newly created microsystems that I will be using to go to war with the bookies this time around.

I am focussing on those trainers with the best recent records at the festival and will be trying to discover the profiles of their runners that do so well at the Cheltenham Festival.

Gordon Elliott

Gordon Elliott’s first Festival winner came in 2011 and since then he has racked up no fewer than 22 winners from 139 runners for a level stakes profit of £179.98 at Betfair SP.

Pretty impressive stuff.

There is a nice split between non-handicap and handicap winners, as shown below, and it is the handicappers I will look at first.

The first thing to note is that the handicap chasers are 2-21 and the handicap hurdlers are 7-58, so it is the latter we will be taking a closer look at.

The first interesting statistic I uncovered is that all 7 of these winners had not won a handicap hurdle race previously but all 7 had won either 1 or 2 races that season.

Concentrating on those runners I also uncovered the fact that all 7 had won between 1 and 5 career starts.

All 4 winners had been off the track for 21 to 75 days and all finished in the top 5 on their last start.

Sticking all that into the mixer produces the following:

System: Gordon Elliott handicap hurdlers at Cheltenham Festival.

With between 1 and 5 career wins and won 1-2 races in the current season who have been off the track for 21 to 75 days.

Next, we take a look at those 13 winners in non-handicap races.

He has had 1 bumper winner and 5 hurdles winners, but it is the 7 chase winners I will look at in detail.

First port of call is a break of at least 46 days. He clearly puts them away a good 6 to 7 weeks before the festival and all 7 non-handicap chase winners fit the bill on that score.
All 5 winners had run at least 5 times over fences and all 7 winners were aged between 7yo and 9yo.

I think it is safe to say we can leave it there as it produces the following results:

System: Gordon Elliott non-handicap chasers at Cheltenham Festival.

Off the track for 46 days or longer, run at least 5 times over fences, aged 7yo to 9yo.

Now back to those non-handicap hurdle runners.

He has had 5 winners in such races, and all have been aged 4yo to 6yo.

Interestingly, all had run in the 45 days leading up to the race they competed in at the Festival so a break of 7 weeks or so is a negative. But, also bear in mind all 5 winners had been given a break of at least 16 days.

All 5 winners had run no more than 8 times over in their career.

Again, it is safe to say we can leave it there:

System: Gordon Elliott non-handicap hurdlers at Cheltenham Festival.

Raced in the last 16 to 45 days, aged 4yo to 6yo, no more than 8 career starts.

Now we move on to the main man himself, Willie Mullins.

Willie Mullins

Willie Mullins is the main man at the Festival and he has racked up 54 winners in total.

No fewer than 51 have come since 2008 so that is the starting point for this analysis.

For whatever reason, his hurdlers tend to outperform the chasers and the bumper runners in terms of the number of wins and the strike rate as shown in the table below:

We will start with those hurdlers and then come back and look at the performance of the handicap and non-handicap runners.

So, the hurdlers have racked up an impressive 34 wins from 250 runners and make a nice profit at Betfair SP.

The bumper runners also make a profit, but they are just 4-45 so the chances of getting a Mullins winner in that race have been historically quite slim.

The Festival bumper is a race where I have an interest in an outsider to small stakes and last year it was Relegate at 25/1. I will probably go with a Mullins horse this year too, and again I will be looking to one that is not so obvious on jockey bookings.

Back to the hurdlers and 26 have come in non-handicap races compared to just 8 in the handicap races.

We will concentrate first on the non-handicappers and come back to the handicappers later since they have turned over a huge profit despite a relatively low strike rate of 10%.

The first thing to note is that all 26 of the non-handicap hurdles runners had won at least 2 times under Rules. That takes the overall record to 26-139.

All 26 winners were aged between 5yo and 10yo which eliminates a few more.

19 of the 26 winners last raced at one of the following three tracks; Fairyhouse, Punchestown, and Leopardstown.

That brings the overall record to 19-71 (27% strike rate) and we begin to see a small profit at Betfair SP.

16 of the 19 won their last start before heading to the Festival.

All 16 winners came over 2m ½f to 2m 5f and that leaves us with the following:

15 of the 16 winners were ridden by Ruby Walsh and that improves the strike rate no end.

System: Willie Mullins non-handicap hurdlers at the Cheltenham Festival.

Aged 5yo to 10yo, racing over 2m ½f to 2m 5f, at least 2 career wins under Rules, finished 1st last time out, last raced at Fairyhouse, Punchestown or Leopardstown, ridden by Ruby Walsh.

Now we see if we can find a system for those handicap hurdlers where we saw a big profit at a low strike rate.

We can eliminate approximately half of the losers by just concentrating on 2 races; the County Hurdle run over 2m 1f and the Martin Pipe run over 2m 4 ½f.

He has won those races 7 times from 46 runners for a profit of £73.92.

All 7 winners were no shorter than 9/2 and no bigger than 25/1 at SP.

6 of the 7 winners were aged either 5yo or 6yo.

System: Willie Mullins handicap hurdlers the at the Cheltenham Festival.

All runners in the Martin Pipe or County Hurdle sent off at odds of 9/2 to 25/1.

Before we move on from Willie Mullins, I can tell you that he is 0-30 in the Festival handicap chases since 2008 so you may just save yourself a few quid by swerving those runners this year.

Jonjo O’Neill

Jonjo has a decent Festival record and he has racked up 22 winners since 2003.

In fact, he has had at least 1 winner in 12 of the last 16 Festivals.

He drew a blank the last 2 years, so we could say he is due a winner or two this time around.

He does not have the best strike rate (22-251; 8.76%) but his runners are worth exploring none the less.

We start by focussing on the 15 winners in non-handicap races that have won at a strike rate three times higher than the handicappers. They have an overall record of 15-97 (15.46% strike rate) and realise a profit of £82.38 at industry SP.

All 15 winners were racing over 2m 1f or further and the ones racing over 2m and 2m ½f are 0-22 so we will give them the swerve.

All 15 winners were 10yo or younger. He has run a few over the age of 10yo but these have not gone on to win.

13 of the 15 winners went off at odds between 4/1 and 33/1.

He has had a couple of winners around the Even money but I want to ditch these and concentrate on those at a decent price.

All 13 winners had been off the track for 16 days or longer. 10 of the 13 winners came over fences so we shall concentrate on those.

All 10 winners had run at least 4 times over fences Now we are looking at the following results:

We can ramp things up again by looking at the horses finishing position last time out.

We find that 7 of those 10 Festival winners in non-handicap chases finished either 1st or 2nd last time out.

This system only throws up 1 or 2 qualifiers every couple of years at the Festival but at a near 40% strike rate it is going into my tracker.

System: Jonjo O’Neill non-handicap chasers at the Cheltenham Festival.

Finished 1st or 2nd last time out, aged 9yo or younger, at least 4 chase starts, racing over 2m 1f or further, off the track for 16 days or longer, priced 4/1 to 33/1.

For our Gold members Nick takes a closer look at Paul Nicholls, the “plot man” AJ Martin and David Pipe. He also takes a look at a jockey who has been tremendous value to follow in handicap races.

If you'd like to bet alongside Dr Nick at all the big meetings this year, check out his Big Race Tips service which made 692 points profit since January 2016 – Click Here.