Predicting Cheltenham Festival Winners

Of course everybody would like to come up wish a handful of winners for the Cheltenham Festival especially when over half a billion pounds will be wagered on the outcomes of the twenty six races, but picking winners is a difficult process even for the experts and professional punters. One can also follow tipsters, look at the odds, study form or use a pin to find the winner, but another weapon in your armoury could be to look at the statistics of previous race winners in order to see if there are any trends that can be used to your advantage. For instance, if a horse has performed well in a previous race, does that indicate that it might have an increased probability at performing well at Cheltenham?

Fortunately that has already been done by experts and these are the results that they have discovered for a number of the Festivals events.

The Victor Chandler Chase takes place at Ascot during January. Given its distance and conditions, it is considered to be a good race for preparing horses for the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Examining the statistics, over a period of twenty years two Cheltenham Gold Cup races and six Champion Chase races have been won by horses that won the Victor Chandler Chase.

The King George VI Chase is a particularly demanding race which is held at Kempton Park on Boxing Day and it is another race that has a good correlation with the Festival. Again, over the last twenty years nine Cheltenham Gold Cup races and four Champion Chase races have been won by winners of the King George VI Chase.

The Tingle Creek Chase is run in December at Sandown and there is strong correlation between this and the Queen Mother Champion Chase. In fact even to be placed in the Tingle Creek Chase is a good enough indicator of form for the Champion Chase which has been won by twelve such horses in the last twenty years.

The Irish Champion Hurdle is a good predictor of the Cheltenham Festival Champion Hurdle and eight Irish winners have gone on to either win or be placed at Cheltenham.

Of course there are many other things to base your predictions on, but these correlations provide a good guide to winning potential.