Hi all,

The eagerly awaited Cheltenham Festival is over for another year. Hopefully you had a better festival betting wise than I did. Breaking even isn’t my idea of a successful weeks punting but on the plus side it could have been worse. Like all eagerly awaited events there is always a sense of deflation when the event is over and it’s no different with ending of Cheltenham Festival. Oh well just another 359 days to go till the start of the 2018 festival.

At least there is still plenty to look forward too with Aintree’s Grand National meeting just a couple of weeks away and the Punchestown Festival also on the horizon. Meanwhile those of us who like the flat will be heartened with the thought that there’s less than two weeks till Doncaster gets the 2017 flat season underway.

There will be acres of words written on the subject of the Cheltenham Festival and on this occasion I wont be adding to much more although I will take a brief look back at a couple of performances from last week and I will also give you a horse that should go into your trackers with the Aintree Grand National meeting in mind.

Cheltenham Runners at the Aintree Festival

Whilst on the subject of the upcoming Aintree Festival I might as well share with you a few stats regarding horses who ran at the Cheltenham Festival and then went on to run at Aintree.

Here is the record of those horses that ran at the Cheltenham festival and then went on to run at Aintree since 2012:

66 winners from 590 runners 11% -100.72 A/E 0.96 176 placed 30%

If we focus in on those horses from Cheltenham that went to Aintree having finished in the first three at Cheltenham:

40 winners from 149 runners 27% +68.63 A/E 1.19 78 placed 52% +93.59 – with a level stakes profit to Betfair SP of 101.65.

Meanwhile those horses’s that finished outside the first three last time out are:

26 winners from 441 runners 6% +169.35 98 places 22%

We can see form those stats that a top three finish at the Cheltenham Festival is of real utility when coming to Aintree. Indeed contrast that with those horses that came to the Aintree Festival having finished in the first three at any track besides Cheltenham last time out:

24 winners from 644 runners 4% -296.5 A/E 0.53 102 places 16%

Altior & Sizing John Top Of The Cheltenham Pops

When it comes to the best performances from last week we will all have our favourites. Here are my two.

The Arkle Chase won, as expected, by the Nicky Henderson trained Altior. Plenty have had their say as about how impressive he was in winning his race with the consensus being that he wasn’t as impressive as had been expected. After the race his jockey Nico De Boinville had said that the horse does tend to hit a bit of a flat spot in his races and three out he was being rousted along by his jockey. The race had not been run at the fastest pace but when the leader Charbel came down two out, Altior was just starting to hit top gear and I think he would have gone clear of that horse after the last even if Charbel had stayed on his feet. No horse all day over fences was finishing as fast as the Henderson horse and I think his performance can easily be marked up in the context of the overall race time.

Sizing John who had been chasing home Douvan for most of his career over fences improved for the step up to 3m when taking the Irish Gold Cup on his previous start and continued his progression with a good win in the Gold Cup on the Friday. How good a Gold Cup winner is the 7 year old? Well, I don’t think it was as good a race as the 2015 renewal won by Don Cossack and unlike last years race this was more of a test of speed than stamina. Still that shouldn’t take away from the fact that Sizing John still has time on his side to improve further and all the runners who finished behind are unlikely to beat him in next years race. Cue Card came down at the same fence as he had done last year but this time he wasn’t travelling anywhere near as good when coming to grief this time around. Minella Rocco would have preferred a stiffer stamina test than he faced here as he was staying on strongly to grab 2nd at the line. Native River just lost second and he ran as well as could be expected having been disputing the lead for most of the way but just didn’t have the speed of the winner. Djakadam had been expected to better than 4th, he would have preferred softer ground but I just don’t think he gets this far and is essentially a little paceless over this trip in championship company.

One For The Tracker:

Theinval trained by Nicky Henderson was having his first start since winning at Plumpton back in December but still ran a cracker when finishing 3rd in the Grand Annual Handicap Chase. The 7 year old who has won over further looks to have got his act together over fences now but just couldn’t match the speed of the winner Rock The World after the last. Three of his five career wins have come when racing 16 to 30 days since his last start so this run should have put him spot on for Aintree. Theinval won the valuable 2m 4f handicap hurdle at Aintree in 2015 on good to soft going and if he gets good or good to soft going at worst next month has to have a big chance of a win there again.

Stat Corner:

Poor run by Horsted Keynes last week but hopefully most of you got on the Tom George bumper winner Clondaw Castle at Stratford. Here’s hoping we can go one better today.

Monday Selections

Taunton

4:20 – Moorlands Jack – The 12 year old drops down into Class 5 company today and is also now 15lb lower than for his last win in November 2015. The forecast good ground will suit the veteran who wouldn’t want to see any rain before post time. Returns from a 79 day break here but his trainer Jeremy Scott can get one ready to win after a 60+ day break being 18 winners from 72 runners 25% +59.56 36 placed 50% +79, with his handicap chasers returning from a 60+ day absence and starting 14/1 & under in the betting in the past 3 years. Trainer also has his horses in winning form being 3 wins from 3 runners in the past 14 days.

Moorlands Jack – win – 5/1 @ Bet365

All that’s left now is to wish you an enjoyable and profitable weeks betting

Thanks
John
.

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