Cheltenham Festival 2020 feedback

[SamuelP]

What was your best bet? (No monetary figures please)
1) Simply The Betts at 33/1, and having this as well as the Imperial Aura/STB double.
2) EW double of Sire Du Berlais and Saint Roi gave me my best return from 1 bet. Interestingly, that's the second year running my best return has been from an ew multiple placed the week of the Festival, rather than anything antepost.

Worst bet?
Backing anything in the Foxhunters antepost. Poorest race of the festival for me and always seems a bit of a lottery.

Favourite race of the Festival
So many good ones. The RSA and Albert Bartlett from a neutral's point of view were outstanding. But personally the Gold Cup, seeing Al Boum Photo win for a second time and backing both seasons.

Worst race of the Festival?
Foxhunters, and Champion Chase due to losing Altior and Chacun beforehand.

Best Performance?
Al Boum Photo
Barry Geraghty

Biggest disappointment?
Champ flying past the two horses that would have given me my biggest returns of the week. Also backing the 2nd, 3rd and 4th to win at good prices antepost in the Supreme and Albert Bartlett. And also the fall of Column of Fire in the Martin Pipe.

Dark horse for next years Festival?
Saint Roi - Champion Hurdle. Impressed by how he travelled and hit the line. Only a five year old so with progression who knows.
Put The Kettle on - Champion Chase.

Biggest irritation of this years Festival?
The coronavirus fears. But in hindsight if they had cancelled it I would have understood.

Underdog performance of the Festival?
Put The Kettle On in Arkle. Wasn't really mentioned much beforehand and, watching it back a few times, I am really impressed by the manner in which she won.

Biggest regret?
-Using a lesser established company to bet with. Had Easysland at 20s but the company I used went bust so that wasn't a nice feeling when I discovered that.
-Not backing Champ when a double figure price.
-Not taking the 40/1 about Epatante to do the related double. Despite being in a good position (at the time) with the Irish 2m hurdlers I should have paid more attention to the money coming for Epatante to win the Christmas Hurdle. Instead I had it in mind that the only horse that could step up was Fusil Raffles(??), so was the only one I was really focussing on in a key trial. Lesson learnt though.

What would you do differently for next years Festival??
Only use established, reputable companies to place bets with

[Istabraq]

Worst bet?
Backing anything in the Foxhunters antepost. Poorest race of the festival for me and always seems a bit of a lottery.

Amazing how many people have this view when prior to this year 7 of the previous 11 renewals were won by the favourite or joint favourite...

[The King Pimm]

Amazing how many people have this view when prior to this year 7 of the previous 11 renewals were won by the favourite or joint favourite...

There wasn’t a stand out horse this Festival in the Foxhunters though. Hazel Hill had a big question mark over his head after some dodgy jumping LTO and the others at the top of the market had questions marks or not much experience next to their names
Im not a fan of the Foxhunters nor any of the amateur races at the festival. I think the Festival has out grown them and the Hunter Chase meeting in April could cater for them as most of those races, if not all, are amateur races??. I would still keep the 4 miler but make it a conditionals race or a 4mile handicap or 4 mile graded race and the same with the Kim Muir and Martin Pipe. It would encourage Trainers to take on more conditional jockeys in their yards and improve the pool of jockeys within professional racing. Let’s be honest Jaime Codd, Sam Whaley Cohen and Patrick Mullins and co are not really amateurs, they are as good as the majority of professionals, if they were horses they would be ‘lightly raced’. They could still take as many rides as they do currently and still be classed as professional. To see the delight Adam Wedge and Brendan Powell showed when winning its a massive deal to all professional jockeys who would have more chance of winning if those 3 or 4 races were made available to them. Even if 2 races were set aside for jockeys who had less than 25 wins that season it would be a better standard than the amateur efforts.

[SamuelP]

Amazing how many people have this view when prior to this year 7 of the previous 11 renewals were won by the favourite or joint favourite...

Why stop at using this year's renewal in the stats you've used? And why stop at 11 previous renewals? I could put forward that between 2000-2008 in the 8 renewals of this race 6 of the 8 winners had a SP of 14/1+, including 33/1, 3x20/1, 16/1 and 14/1 winners. Or in the last 4 renewals we have had, 3 winning SP's of 66/1, 25/1 and 16/1. This would all paint a different picture of the race. But I would be taking only the stats that back up my view of the race so it wouldn't be fair.
Yes it was probably a shit generalisation of the race, but personally it is my least fav and I think there are far better opportunities to crack other races antepost, and far more chance of backing a big priced winner on the day for this race as opposed to other Cheltenham races.

[Istabraq]

I could go back to the punter friendly 90s too.
Maybe the dislike comes from the fact most horses aren’t seen before February each year and, for many, it’s alien to equate form at park courses or a number of pilots that aren’t familiar, I don’t know, but the race has produced it’s fair share of popular (punter friendly) winners...

[Middle_Of_March]

I could go back to the punter friendly 90s too.
Maybe the dislike comes from the fact most horses aren’t seen before February each year and, for many, it’s alien to equate form at park courses or a number of pilots that aren’t familiar, I don’t know, but the race has produced it’s fair share of popular (punter friendly) winners...

Totally agree.

Wishing and Hoping. There’s your 2021 Foxhunters winner Samuel.

[SamuelP]

Totally agree.

Wishing and Hoping. There’s your 2021 Foxhunters winner Samuel.

Ok I'm all in haha.

[SamuelP]

I could go back to the punter friendly 90s too.
Maybe the dislike comes from the fact most horses aren’t seen before February each year and, for many, it’s alien to equate form at park courses or a number of pilots that aren’t familiar, I don’t know, but the race has produced it’s fair share of popular (punter friendly) winners...

Yeah just think it's a more difficult race to predict (for a lot of the reasons you state) so will be leaving it antepost unless something that is obvious value turns up. Fast forward 10 months, I'll probably have 5 or 6 horses backed haha

[BigChaang]

I remember when i got into Cheltenham and Antepost betting ,.
that somehow i felt i had to bet on Every race , Cover all the angles..
But as things have progressed , I have Certain Races i Love ,.
and others i'm not so fussed about - The Bumper for a start.
Personally , I really like the Cross country Chase and if i'm at the Festival,.
walking out to the centre of the course to watch.
I mentioned on another thread , that i didn't pay much attention to the N.H.Chs,.
this year . Didn't fancy Carefully selected , and just bet on the day.
Really like Day 1 and day 2 . ( apart from the bumper ).
where as i can look at and study for the R.s.a and gold cup for a whole year ,.
Love those two Races particularly.

[Saxon Warrior]

I assume you are a winning punter SW so I'm staggered you retain an unrestricted 365 acc...

Very much so, Ista. They must think I am just lucky.

[Saxon Warrior]

SW I can’t believe you were able to cash out that bet during the NHC, cracking move well done, and doesn’t sound like it has cost you your account either

[robith]

What was your best bet? (No monetary figures please)

The Envoi Allen/Samcro double. Watched it in the office and everyone knew what I got in Samcro won. People who hadn't backed him just grabbing me as we all went mental when it was called. Closely followed by the STB/IA double. Plenty off the post - Aba and LE getting up would've returned me 1,000 points. Ah well.


Worst bet?

Not the worst, but a tale of moderation. I was in Paris on the Friday and was having an ok day but a couple of my favoured ones LE particuarly hadn't gone in. I'm on the streets on Paris about to place the biggest bet I've ever placed in my life, 20pts, on ABP cos I'm well in profit. I then took a moment and went "wait, this is insane", and took it down to 10 points. Don't even care that I didn't win as much - the original, impulse stake was irresponsible.

Favourite race of the Festival

Marsh for pocket, but I thought the Supreme, story wise, was a banger. There's a lot to unpick there!

Worst race of the Festival?

Champion Chase, didn't even bother watching it live, didn't even care when Defi didn't win

Best Performance?

Envoi Allen rallying home was quite something. Samcro, everyone loves a redemption story

Biggest disappointment?

CPS pulling out like 2 hours before.

Dark horse for next years Festival?

Won't have gone unnoticed but Captain Guinness, Elixir D'Ainay and Chantry House caught the eye in the Supreme. Us and Them to carry on the trend of placed horses doing well in the Grand Annual?

Biggest irritation of this years Festival?

False starts. Allowing it to go ahead in a global pandemic. Preview circuit was awful this year. Kennedy and the state of the FFP these days.

Underdog performance of the Festival?

Put The Kettle On - I loved her for the novice handicap, mad at myself for not covering the move to the Arkle. Lisnagar Oscar going off a huge price despite the Cleeve performance

Biggest regret?

First profitable festival since 2016 for me. No such thing as regret when you're up!

What would you do differently for next years Festival??

Using free bets for multiples massively helped. Making a book on certain races helps with profit but much more work. NRNB is your friend and a big help.

[Leman14]

What was your best bet? (No monetary figures please)
I still think that my best bet was a losing one. Like many, I had the Sky RAB of Min & Champ to Win, Oldgrangewood and Column Of Fire to place @ 250/1
I only had one Free Bet on it, but what a bet!

Worst bet?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and looking back, there were lots of horses that I had backed in the "wrong" race.
However, at the time - I felt that it was a good bet and the "right" race IMO.
IF I had to pick one, I backed Colreevy quite heavily (for me) on course in the lead up to the race.
I had good returns lined up for Mullins' other two runners (Dolcita & Concertista), but I was worried that I hadn't got it covered.
Guinness got the better of me.

Favourite race of the Festival
There were LOADS of good races, but my favourite was the Albert Bartlett, followed closely by the RSA and the Gold Cup.
I had 2nd, 3rd and 4th covered, so at the time - it wasn't that enjoyable. BUT having watched the four days back now... it was the most thrilling finish.

Worst race of the Festival?
Foxhunter - despite having relative success in this over the years, its a race that I just can't get excited about.
I get why it's important for the Amateur Jockeys and the PTP/Hunter Chase scene, but not for me.

Best Performance?
A bit left-field (as I don't disagree with shouts for Bazza G etc...) but having watched the festival back - I thought that Harry Whittington had an excellent festival.
Just THREE runners and they came 3rd, 2nd and 1st. Not a bad week!!!

Biggest disappointment?
What was billed as the race of the festival - turned into something a bit "meh".
No Altior.
No Chacun Pour Soi
It wasn't even a procession for Defi
I even backed Politologue at 33/1 last summer, but it just wasn't the race I had hoped it would be.

Dark horse for next years Festival?
I think that there could be a few that didn't make it around that could come back next year.
Captain Guinness and Elixir D'Ainay are just two that spring to mind that could have finished well in the Supreme and may prove to be better than those in 3rd backwards.

Biggest irritation of this years Festival?
The starter.
It seemed to get better as the week progressed, but many a race could have been started 50-100m back from the tapes, when they were all "jig-jogging" perfectly nicely. The longer they "jig-jog" the more anxious they get.
Either start them closer OR let them go sooner.

Underdog performance of the Festival?
Has to be Lisnagar Oscar in the Stayers. May just be worth looking back down the Albert Bartlett field for next years Stayers Winner....

Biggest regret?
I had my best ever festival - from a punting perspective, so it's difficult to have any/many regrets.
Those that I do have are covered in the last section...

What would you do differently for next years Festival??
Cover bets!
On numerous occasions, I went into races with 2-3 towards the head of the market at decent prices.
I then felt the need to "cover" the odd horse that I felt was a danger - eating into my profits.
E.G. Asterion Forlonge (despite having Shishkin and Abracadabras), Copperhead (despite having Minella Indo, Allaho & Champ!) etc...
I also probably did too many multiples, too far out. If they are BIG priced Lucky 15's/Yankees, then I will still do them. BUT short-priced win-only accumulators, just don't seem to pay. (Yes there will be some (Samcro/Envoi) - but only a small percentage will still be live come festival week).

[luisgarciaisgod]

What was your best bet? (No monetary figures please)
Covering Lostintranslation with ABP after LIT's wobbler at Xmas. Only in multiples but they all ended up coming in.

Worst bet?
Cash Back in the Arkle, he wasn't helped by the restart but he just never got into it.

Favourite race of the Festival
Probably the Marsh, i was sweet on Melon and it was a sickner to see him get beat but it was a great race.

Worst race of the Festival?
Champion Chase, really poor.

Best Performance?
Even though he fell Gosheen looked like an absolute superstar.

Biggest disappointment?
Abacadbras not winning despite looking the winner from miles out. Shades of Harchibald/Hardy Eustace that for me

Dark horse for next years Festival?
Allart, Looks like he could be a lovely 2miler

Biggest irritation of this years Festival?
The bloody starter!

Underdog performance of the Festival?
Has to be Put The Kettle on, didn't see that from Adam

Biggest regret?
Not getting over despite having everything booked for the Friday.

What would you do differently for next years Festival??
More single bets

[charlie]

What was your best bet? (No monetary figures please)
Shishkin @ 40/1 & 33/1

Worst bet?
Cashed out PTKO and Ferny Hollow both at big double figure prices

Favourite race of the Festival
Ryanair. Buzzing Min won having made the case a few times

Worst race of the Festival?
Champion Chase. CPS @ 67/1 combined with EA doubles made his absence brutal

Best Performance?
Envoi Allen was a weapon

Biggest disappointment?
Tiger Roll

Dark horse for next years Festival?
I think The Big Breakaway will turn into a proper RSA contender

Biggest irritation of this years Festival?
Coronovirus concerns was a pain. £6 a pint was just a piss take too, just make it a fiver ffs.

Underdog performance of the Festival?
Put The Kettle On

Biggest Regret?
Cash out. Saved me loads of points but ended up costing me a lot more

What would you do differently for next years Festival??
I am going to record everything like Kev so I have exact P/L down to the very last pt.