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General

ARAZI91 ARAZI91 , after reading those 2 articles you realise how complicated the whole business of meaningful Stats and Trends really are. i agree with the idea of inc. placed horses but is this any use if a horse finishes 3rd but is beaten many lengths ? i like the type of stats above ie 0- 46 .
Overall , i will be concentrating on the Top Trainers , this is their Pinnacle of the year , they are the best trainers for a reason and they generally have the best horses.
 
ARAZI91 ARAZI91 , after reading those 2 articles you realise how complicated the whole business of meaningful Stats and Trends really are. i agree with the idea of inc. placed horses but is this any use if a horse finishes 3rd but is beaten many lengths ? i like the type of stats above ie 0- 46 .
Overall , i will be concentrating on the Top Trainers , this is their Pinnacle of the year , they are the best trainers for a reason and they generally have the best horses.
Yep , it certainly is a complicated process and very easy to become blinkered - i think the placed horses in such a competitive series of races are meaningful , especially with the above average field sizes of 22-23 runners per race. It is much harder to be placed at the festival than a normal Cheltenham handicap , which in itself is still harder than an average handicap overall. There are better ways to measure these small samples , than just wins and win %. On that list of trainers there is Nick Gifford who has had 20 runners in Festival hcaps with no wins BUT - 12 of those runners have finished in the top half of the field in an avg FS of 23, and with finishes like - 3/20 , 4/24, 6/26, 3/20 , 3/28 , 2/28, 5/20, 3/19 you have to say his runners are competitive at the least. Nick Williams runners are similar. With such open markets , big fields and place concessions i just think if you can winkle out some nuggets like this - it can give you more options.

The Paul Jones comments interested me , about the top of the handicap - I looked at the festival Hcaps a few ways from Position Of OR and homed in that Pos 5-9 had the best recent record - still a very small sample -75 races from 2011 to draw anything meaningful but does show the record of winners to runners within their place in the Handicap by position of OR
Impact Values (Win & Place) and ROI were considerably better overall.
ITM = In The Money Finishes - Wins & Place.

Cheltenham Hcaps By OR Pos.PNG

by year Pos 5-9 would look like this
By Year.PNG
and backing EW at Industry SP over that time
EW.PNG
 
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ARAZI91 ARAZI91 , after reading those 2 articles you realise how complicated the whole business of meaningful Stats and Trends really are. i agree with the idea of inc. placed horses but is this any use if a horse finishes 3rd but is beaten many lengths ? i like the type of stats above ie 0- 46 .
Overall , i will be concentrating on the Top Trainers , this is their Pinnacle of the year , they are the best trainers for a reason and they generally have the best horses.
simon boardman simon boardman - BTW I agree here re - Top Trainers
This little lot have won just under 70% of all races at the Festival since 2010
Trainers 1.PNG
Trainers 2.PNG
Since 2010 these 13 trainers have accounted for just over 48% of all runners while being responsible for just under 70% of all winners.
That translates to an Impact Value of 1.44
 
Some Cheltenham stable tours / comments from the RP in pdf.
 

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  • P Nicholls - Cheltenham Stable Tour - Comments RP.pdf
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Henry De Bromhead - at first look does not stand out , but had a good festival last year , and arguably has an even better team this year.
Special Tiara won the Champion Chase (trainers second time winning it) and he also saddled two seconds and two thirds.
The barren spell from 2011 was due to him losing his biggest owner , but he has a completely different set up now and pre 2011 had won the Champion Chase , an Arkle and a Cross Country.
 
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Sizing John will not defend his crown in the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup next week, trainer Jessica Harrington has announced.

The eight-year-old carried all before him last season, but this campaign has not gone to plan after an impressive return in the John Durkan Memorial Chase at Punchestown in December.

He was sent off the hot favourite after that to win the Leopardstown Christmas Chase but was well beaten in seventh place, and although Harrington was hopeful he was returning to his best for the Festival, a " hairline non-displaced fracture of his pelvis" has dashed plans.

Harrington told Unibet: "It is with a heavy heart I have to report that Sizing John will miss the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He cantered as normal this morning at Commonstown and during routine checks this afternoon was found to be sore behind.

" I have had our vet Mark McRedmond come and check him over. He has found a hairline non-displaced fracture of his pelvis. He will have box rest for two weeks and then be rescanned with a view of starting walking exercise.

"This is a massive blow for the Potts family and for all our team here at Commonstown."

Harrington is still set to be represented in the Gold Cup by Our Duke.
 
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The handicaps at Cheltenham can be very tricky but always good to get your teeth into. I am a big fan of Paul Nicholls and normally look closely at his runners in handicaps I was surprised though to see hes record when he gets a runner in the lower half of the weights.

His overall record in all handicaps is as follows:
View attachment 56268

If we then look at his runners in the bottom half I have chosen the 11th or worse position in HRB and his runners then become profitable

View attachment 56269

All 8 of those winners were ridden by a pro jockey so if we remove any ridden by claimers then the results become decent

View attachment 56270
Seems he is good at getting his runners into the lower part of the handicap and I will certainly be looking closely at any of his runners that meet the above criteria. Also worth a mention is that 3 out of 4 of his winners wore blinkers


Nicholls has a runner that meets criteria on Wednesday
1520968987639.png
I quite like that fact that if you break the above to handicap hurdles the record is better

1520969095698.png
and if you restrict to just Juvenile races it is a small sample but decent nevertheless

1520969201349.png
The loser finished second to his winner :handgestures-thumbup:

At 20/1 Grand Sancy could be worth a second look
 
All Racing Post Cards , Ratings , Topspeed , ORs , Postdata , Spotlights for Day 2
Individual form (procards) posted on race threads.
 

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  • CHL_20180314_00_00_F_0015_PM_Cheltenham.pdf
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