We got lucky last year, as the Cheltenham Festival was the last major sporting event to take place prior to lockdown (no such luck with the 'virtual Grand National' – which wasn't exactly edge of your seat stuff). Thankfully this year once again the Cheltenham Festival will once again be taking place. Sadly there will be no crowds but the 'Cheltenham Roar' from the previous Festival will be used and so that familiar feel will be there. In anticipation of the event, with the help of Betway, Richard Hoiles has his quiz hat on and will be asking some well known West Ham players representing Ireland and Britain (Prestbury Cup style!) what they know about racing and the Cheltenham Festival.
Monday, 15 March 2021
Monday, 1 March 2021
The Long & the Short of it: Cheltenham ‘Championship’ Races

By contrast, in 1990, Norton’s Coin, one of just three horses trained by Carmarthen permit holder Sirrell Griffiths, was the longest-priced winner in the history of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. ‘More a candidate for last than first’, at least according to the official Cheltenham racecard on the day, the nine-year-old defied odds of 100/1 to beat Toby Tobias and defending champion Desert by three-quarters of a length and four lengths, breaking the course record in the process.
In 1954, Sir Ken, trained by Willie
Stephenson, became only the second horse – after Hatton’s Grace –
to win the Champion Hurdle three times a row. He started favourite on
all three occasions but, in 1953, he was sent off at 2/5, making him
the shortest-priced winner in the history of the race. At the other
end of the scale, Kirriemuir, trained by Fulke Walwyn, popped up at
50/1 in 1965, as did Beech Road, trained by Toby Balding, in 1989;
they share the spoils as the joint-longest-priced winners.
The Stayers’ Hurdle – or ‘World
Hurdle’, as it was known for a while – was first run, in its
current guise, in 1972. Since then, Big Buck’s, who won the race
four consecutive times, in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, was twice
returned at odds of 5/6, in 2010 and 2012, making him the
shortest-priced winner of the modern era. In 1983, BBC pundit
announced that he would ‘eat his hat’ if A Kinsman, trained by
Cumbrian farmer John Brockbank, won the Stayers’ Hurdle.
Nevertheless, A Kinsman duly obliged, at 50/1, to become the
longest-priced winner in the history of the race.
Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Biggest Cheltenham Festival Flops
The Cheltenham Festival regularly
provides the most competitive racing in the British National Hunt
calendar, so short-priced, even odds-on, losers are commonplace. Even
so, from time to time, the public latches on to a horse which, for
whatever reason, is backed as if defeat is out of the question. Of
course, it isn’t, but such horses are often forced in to short,
sometimes ludicrously short, prices. ‘Following the money’ can
pay dividends, but can, equally, be a total disaster.
The most obvious recent example of a Cheltenham Festival ‘flop’ was Douvan, trained by Willie Mullins, in the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2017. In a race that has had more than its fair share of odds-on losers down the years, Douvan was sent off at prohibitive odds of 2/9 to continue his unbeaten run, which stretched back 14 races over hurdles and fences. Even so, there were still takers, including one anonymous punter who reportedly placed a bet of £100,000/£500,000 at odds of 1/5. In any event, Douvan jumped poorly, was soon outpaced and trailed in seventh of the nine finishers, beaten 11¾ lengths, behind the winner Special Tiara.
Kasbah Bliss, trained in France by
Francois Doumen, was a regular at the Cheltenham Festival in the
Noughties, but having been beaten in the Triumph Hurdle and twice in
the Stayers’ Hurdle – or the World Hurdle, as it was known at the
time – he was surprising made odds-on favourite, at 10/11, for the
latter race in 2009. The previous year, on the Old Course, he had
failed by just a length to overhaul Inglis Drever, but the year
before that, on the New Course, he had had his stamina limitations
exposed when beaten 17 lengths by the same horse. Back on the New
Course in 2008, he fared no better, weakening on the run-in to finish
fourth, beaten 21 lengths, behind Big Buck’s.
Another fine Irish steeplechaser, Beef
Or Salmon, trained by Michael Hourigan, had already been beaten three
times in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, before he lined up, as 4/1
favourite, for the 2006 renewal. On his previous attempts he had
fallen at the third fence in 2003, finished fourth, beaten 3½
lengths, behind Best Mate in 2004 and been tailed off when pulled up
two out behind Kicking King in 2005. However, in the absence of Best
Mate, who’d won for the previous years, he was suddenly considered
favourite material. He wasn’t, finishing eleventh of nineteen,
beaten 19 lengths behind War Of Attrition.
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