Cheltenham Lessons

[Blazing Bailey]

From any big festival, regardless of whether you win or lose, I always think it is worth looking at what you could have done better during the week or if it was simply that good, share it with the rest of us so that we can all earn some more gravy!

My opening lesson this year would to not back any of the Mullins horses antepost (unless its NRNB). I appreciate that it has always been a guessing game with him but this year showed how quick he is to reorganise the pack if a horse has to pull out or their work isn't as good. On the flip side to this, it does mean that money can be made back other trainers horses in the race if they don't turn up.

[arsenalfh]

Cue Card stung me badly. He was my biggest bet of the week and I did a sly ew bet instead of win only thinking there was no way he was finishing out of the top 3 because he is fantastic jumper, Don Cossack might fall under pressure like at Kempton while Smad Place and Don Poli looked held on form. 4/1 ew, even money to place while he was 4/5 on the machine looked a cracking bet and it looked even better when he came tanking down the hill.

A lot of people say that antepost punting is dead but there's still good opportunities. I had 5 antepost bets, got money back on two while the other 3 went off considerably shorter and one actually came home a winner. Take on short priced favourites ew NRNB in races that can cut up and it's hard to go wrong. On the other hand if you fancy the favourites you're better off holding off until the day. Min was available at 3/1 (7/2 small stakes), Annie Power 3/1, Thistlecrack 13/8, Vautour 5/4 etc.

A big mistake I made was deviating from my level stakes staking plan. I often doubled my stakes in the handicaps to 1pt ew when bookies were offering enhanced places but my one bet that placed was 0.5pts ew and my one winner was 0.5pts ew in those races which screwed me badly. I think it's worth increasing stakes at Cheltenham to take adavantage of enhanced prices and lower over rounds but picking what bets to do that in is something I never get right so I should have increased all stakes to 1pt ew or 2pt win. That's something I learned this year.