Preparing For Cheltenham

I’ve written about preparing for various festivals before so sorry if you’ve read that before but I feel I need to stress the importance of not over betting when there is so much great racing on.

We’re being spoiled this week with Cheltenham over three days and I for one cannot wait. So how will I be preparing for this today ready for kick off tomorrow?

Be selective about what races you bet in. I for example have gone through the cards for the three days and selected between 2 and 4 races per day that I think I can get a handle on. As you know I love my handicaps and that is exactly what I’ve focused on.

So step one when facing any type of festival is to focus only on the races you feel you know your stuff on. Below is the list of the races that I will be playing in –

Friday 14th November –

1:50 Handicap Chase

3.00 Neptune Novices Hurdle

 

Saturday 15th November –

1.50 Handicap Chase

2.30 Paddy Power Gold Cup Chase

3.00 Handicap Hurdle

3.35 Triumph Hurdle Trial

 

Sunday 16th November –

2.10 Arkle Trophy Trial

2.40 Shloer Chase

 

So you can see that I have now just 8 races to focus on instead of the mammoth task of going through 19 races!  So what’s next.

First up then I run through all the results for the last 10 years for every race. I pick out all the key trends that I feel are relevant for each winner for every year. I draw up a list of all the trends that have shown to be consistent with every winner and runner up. This immediately shortens the list of qualifiers and saves me having to go through every single runner.  As long as a horse meets at least 3 of 5 key trends then I know that I have a horse likely to run well.

Having got my short-list of runners I move onto the form book and start to ring round various contacts in order to find the best horse that is likely to give me a good run for my money. Sometimes there could be up to 3 horses that I’ll back in one race to increase my chances, sometimes there could just be the one runner worth backing.

Finally and one of the most important approach is to sort my betting bank out. I use a separate one for festivals that doesn’t effect my day to day bank and divide the sum of money that I have by the number of races that I have chosen to play in. So let’s say that I have £1,000 for Cheltenham. I simply divide this by the 8 races to get around £125 per race.

Another great tip to round things off is to use as many bookmaker accounts as you can. There will be bookmakers left, right and centre trying to get your money and as a consequence will be offering concessions galore. Take advantage of these money back offers and you’ll money will go a LOT further.

So to re-cap. If your not going to use a tipster who knows his stuff then simply narrow down the races that you’ll be playing in. Use every resource you have to find the winner whether it be trends, form reading, software or whatever you can get your hands on. Finally and most importantly set aside a bank that you can afford to lose and divide by the number of races you will be betting in. Oh and of course get on board as many bookies as you can to make your money go further.

I’ll be back next week with more insights into the betting world but until then good luck with your betting and enjoy the marvelous spectacle that is Cheltenham.

MATR