To Win at DRF & Cheltenham Festival

[Quevega]

Fakir D’Oudairies: Dublin Chase & CC 150-1 Hills

I've already gone myself in with Fakir backing him for Any Race before his defeat FTO this season. I dont think he wants 2 miles, and never saw him as a 3 miler yet.
Middle distance the way to go with him, from the front, UDS like ride....
The best performance (jumping wise) I've seen was when he raced against Samcro. The trip seem to suit and so did front running.

Fakir is quickly becoming a cliff horse for me. No more bets for 2020, however I would be interested in getting him at a huge price for the Ryanair next season. Still only 6 years old, potential to peak next season after the right trip (middle distance)



Sharjah: ICH & CH 16-1 Sky, 25-1 Hills

I have a working theory to try and work out why Sharjah appears to be fairly inconstant. I seem to hit him on a going day, but that may have been more of a value thing.
Earlier in his career people thought he was ground dependant but he's won/gone well on soft ground. I thought he was track dependant at one stage, but think thats been disproved now.
Having looks at some of the pace maps, it appears he does well when the pace is force earlier on by front runners and he's done well by running from off the pace at the back - a tactic which tends to work when you have 1-2 strong front runners to drive the field forward early on.
I been really impressed with his jumping of late, a trait which will allow him run efficiently through the race and then make up ground towards the end as the front runners start to come back to him. He's just so efficient nowadays.

Looking at some of the sectional last year, the Champion Hurdle last year was ridden a few seconds off the pace of the supreme.

I expect my theory to be tested this weekend. I don't think Petite is quick enough to drag the field around and with the absence of Aspire, I think Honeysuckle will take it up and set some slow factions - her jumping alone (can be noticeable slow at times) will help slow the pace down, and I had Honeysuckle down as a speed horse.
I'm against Sharjah for the ICH, but I'm really for him in the champion hurdle where I'm expecting strong pace, more so than last year.
Sharjah finishing a few lengths off the winner this weekend could be a step closer to proving my theory, and could lead to a fairly significant bet on him at bigger prices for the CH

That's as good a summing up of Sharjah as you can get.

The only issue is it's always hard to say how hard they will go before the race, and it often doesn't quite pan out perfectly, but your imagining of the race coming up on Saturday is spot on.

[DeeBee]

I like the look of

Appreciate It: Chanelle Pharma & Supreme, Zahahyir Spring Juv & TH 40-1 Hills

I expect AI to win looking at the initial cards.. Zanahyyir is maybe 50/50 so I’ll take my chance and hopefully have a nice double rolling onto chelts

[opatcho]

Cheers Quevega - was wondering if I was on the right lines with that one

Ask Hills to add Appreicate IT for next week and Supreme

[jonthehammer]

Worth mentioning only one horse managed to do this last year and that was Honeysuckle. As far as i can see only 2 horses who ran at the DRF won as well, Min & Concertista, unless i have missed 1.

[opatcho]

Worth mentioning only one horse managed to do this last year and that was Honeysuckle. As far as i can see only 2 horses who ran at the DRF won as well, Min & Concertista, unless i have missed 1.

It's a bit close to the festival isn't it
You wouldnt want to see your AP selection have a hard race over the weekend

[jono]

Worth mentioning only one horse managed to do this last year and that was Honeysuckle. As far as i can see only 2 horses who ran at the DRF won as well, Min & Concertista, unless i have missed 1.

I think the average has been a couple of winners have doubled up since it began.
Klassical Dream and Envoi Allen in 2019.
Samcro, Footpad, Relegate in 2018.
And in those years plenty of runners ran and then placed / won at the festival.
I think the ground last year especially was a key factor in the poor turn out.

[Lobos]

Worth mentioning only one horse managed to do this last year and that was Honeysuckle. As far as i can see only 2 horses who ran at the DRF won as well, Min & Concertista, unless i have missed 1.

With the entries this year of current Festival favs, plenty on here will be hoping that stat goes up a bit this year !

[Kevloaf]

With the entries this year of current Festival favs, plenty on here will be hoping that stat goes up a bit this year !

Exactly what I thought when I read the stat.

Gulp.

[Magpie]

Yes ground had a big bearing on the lack of winners doubling up, last few years the ground was very quick, many horses pulled, and plenty of grumbling from trainers. Leopardstown and Cheltenham are such different tracks, that i dont think if a horse loses here, it wont win at Cheltenham. Having said that, the course will not be fast this year! So will be interesting to see how Dublin form is upheld in March.

[Lobos]

Exactly what I thought when I read the stat.

Gulp.

Me too. We currently have Appreciate It, Monkfish, Chacun, Min, Zanahiyr, Stattler and Sir Gerhard that head the Festival markets and are entered up at the DRF. If just one of those doubles up again then that won't be good !

[Lobos]

Yes ground had a big bearing on the lack of winners doubling up, last few years the ground was very quick, many horses pulled, and plenty of grumbling from trainers. Leopardstown and Cheltenham are such different tracks, that i dont think if a horse loses here, it wont win at Cheltenham. Having said that, the course will not be fast this year! So will be interesting to see how Dublin form is upheld in March.

Very good point re ground. That makes me feel better.

[Eggs]

....French Aseel & TH 16-1 Sky.

I’ll endeavour to update post #1 with all changes so folk have a single view of offers.

[PresentingPercy]

Update on the general going at Leopardstown ahead of the weekend - clerk of the course is good, he does these videos almost daily in advance of a meeting. Hurdle track is heavy at the moment and chase described as soft..

https://twitter.com/ihrb_ie/status/1356525078947778560

[Eggs]

....Gentlemansgame & AB 50-1 Sky

[Eireman]

Wasn't sure where to put this so Kevloaf can move it to where he feels appropriate but I have seen several comments now about how winning at the DRF can have a negative impact on a horses chance at Cheltenham so I wanted to take a further look into this. I am looking at horses that won at the DRF last year and also horses that then performed either well or poorly at Cheltenham and if winning at the DRF could have played a part in their poor performance at Cheltenham.

Day 1 winner at the DRF last year were Latest Exibition, Chacun Por Soi, Notebook, Eclair De Beaufeu, Honeysuckle, Thosedaysaregone, Appreciate it.

Their respective finishes at their races at Cheltenham then reads, 2, NR, 6, 2, 1, 3, 2

Day 2 winners last year were Black Tears, A wave of the sea, Asterion Forlonge, Treacysenniscorthy, Faugheen, Delta Work, Glamorgan Duke, Darling Daughter.

Their respective finishes at Cheltenham then read, 2, 7, 4, NR, 3, 5, NR, 15.

So that is 1 winner at the DRF who went on to win at Cheltenham. On the face of it that does seem poor however when you look a bit deeper and look at how the winners at the DRF performed at Cheltenham you get a slightly different picture. 58.3% of the winners at the DRF placed at Cheltenham when you remove the winners who didn't run. Now of those 12 who could have performed better for not having run at the DRF because remember the point going around is that winning at the DRF can have a negative impact on a horses chances at Cheltenham and you can only really say Notebook and Delta Work could have ran better at Cheltenham if they didn't run at the DRF and even the latter is debatable there because of the other reasons for his potential disappointing performance in the gold cup.

Latest Exibition, Eclair De Beaufeu, Thosedaysaregone, Appreciate it, Black Tears, Faugheen all won at the DRF and ran their race at Cheltenham only to run into one or two in some cases better on the day. If they didn't win at the DRF there is nothing I can see that suggests they would have won at Cheltenham.

Now pf the other that won Awaveofthesea was never going to win the triumph because he wasn't good enough, running at the DRF neither increased his chances nor hindered them in regards to Cheltenham, Asterion Forlonge was never going to win at Cheltenham because of his jumping right, winning or not winning at the DRF was not going to stop that and therefore his win neither increased nor decreased his chances at Cheltenham. Darling Daughter suffered an injury in the bumper if I recall correctly but even if not It's very unlikely she would have won anyway as she wasn't good enough so again winning at the DRF played zero role in her Cheltenham defeat.

So what does this tell us imo for anyone doing to win at the DRF and at Cheltenham? Or about the potential chances of the winners next weekend winning in March? If they are good enough to win in both then they will but this thing about the winners at the DRF being less likely to win at Cheltenham as a result is simply not true when you dig a bit deeper into it.