Cheltenham truly is the home of jump racing and the 3-day November meeting continues in full force this weekend. The Saturday Racecard is flush with both Premier Handicap and Graded action; in this newsletter we'll begin to dissect both. It's a long road to the festival in March, but it starts here.
Punters have always considered Course form at Cheltenham to be of upmost importance. Horses face a unique test here: the undulating nature of the track, big fences and a stiff uphill finish will push horses to their limits. The significance of Cheltenham Course form again came to the fore yesterday with Hyland, Jonbon and Potters Charm winning the three main races on the card. All had previous Course wins to their name
The Paddy Power Gold Cup Handicap Chase (14:20) is ultra competitive and there are plenty of previous Course winners shown clearly on THM Racecards. The two market leaders, Ginny's Destiny (10/3) and Ga Law (9/2), have the highest Win% at Cheltenham: 60% (3 from 5) and 50% (2 from 4) respectively. Protektorat will carry top weight in the race, given his rating of 167, and will concede almost two stone to the likes of Il Ridoto (9/1) and Lets Go Champ (8/1).
Tracking last month’s Trainer form stats we can see Jamie Snowden, the trainer of Ga Law, is having a great time of things. He's operating at a 33% strike rate from his 27 runners in the last month, with 59% placing. We'll leave it to you to spot the trainers lagging in behind.
The Skeltons are responsible for the short-priced favourite in the Grade 2 Arkle Trial Novices' Chase (13:45). L'Eau du Sud (10/11) is rated 148 after just one run over fences and posted a strong Average Speed figure (49.20 kph) last time out. He’s 11lbs clear of everything else in the field. Lookaway (3/1) was down at 46.44kph when winning recently, but he's won 5 of his 7 career runs on Good ground, which he gets today. He's had a win and a place from his two runs at Cheltenham too, so it'll be interesting to see if he can make a race of it.