Should Previous Course Experience be a Key Factor When Looking For Future Festival Winners?

Marc Owen Banks churns up some interesting stats for us to identify whether or not we should concentrate on Cheltenham runners with previous course form when planning our Cheltenham Betting.

I once remember a quote in racing that pretty much went along the lines of “class is class no matter what the going”. It’s not exact but this was in direct reference to what difference the underfoot conditions made to lower class/rated horses in comparison to top end thoroughbreds. The general consensus being, once the upper echelons of class are considered, the going didn’t matter as much, as a class horse, is class regardless of conditions.

The same may be true when it comes to course conditions. Whether a track is flat or undulating, whether the course is left or right handed, although I think there would be a sterner argument against that latter as there is certainly a distinct preference in most cases in my mind. So the question is – Are the general thoughts that course experience can be key, well founded in regards runners at the Festival?

I ran some figures through my software. Looking at previous festivals I filtered out every runner that had never raced at Cheltenham previously. I then did the same for those that had, and even took it a little further and looked at only those runners who had previous “Festival” form in the book.

What I found was, if last year we had backed every runner that had previously run at the Festival we would have found ourselves striking no less than 270 bets! I wasn’t expecting so many. This number has consistently increased since 2003 when just 195 were making at least a second appearance at the festival. It should be noted that a fourth day has been added since then however. In any case, if anyone was mad enough to back every one last year they would have walked away in profit to the tune of £16.77 to £1 level stakes. Not a strategy I would recommend for 2011, it is just a 6.7% Return on investment.

Cheltenham’s courses, old and new, are idiosyncratic though and must suit certain runners, so I thought including every runner who had previously run on the course was not such a good idea, as they may have run badly previously, perhaps not suited by the track. So I took only those that had run into a place previously on the track at a festival and run through again. I found 28 runners that had previously placed at a festival came back and either won or placed again last year. 10 of those were winners! 2010 was not unique in finding previously festival placed horses winning and placing once again. This is something that shows up as providing winners year in year out a well as some attractively priced places. The technique will not find you every winner, but it will find you some very interesting short-lists from which you may find some nice priced winners, 2010 included Weapons Amnesty and Pigeon Island.

This year there are a whole host of runners coming back from last year and previous festival. Try to find one in the Gold Cup that hasn’t run here before!!!

There are a number looking to retain titles as well. Imperial Commander in the Gold Cup, Binocular,  the Champion Hurdle and Quevega is looking for three on the trot in the David Nicholson Mares Only Hurdle.

Which previous festival winners and placed runners, will you be looking at, to perform well once again in 2011?

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