On a plane en route home from Cheltenham, somewhere over Wales I’m sure. Which reminds me: the (English) joke after Day 2 was that Ireland had the same number of winners as Wales. (Not funny.)
If the Monday evening before Champion Hurdle day is Christmas Eve, then the Saturday morning after Gold Cup day is the Monday morning when you have to go back to school. Literally. As a kid, I used to console myself with the thought that there were only 355 days to go to Christmas Eve. As an adult? Just 361 days to Cheltenham. It is not stretching it to say that the countdown to Cheltenham begins on the day after Cheltenham.
Here’s a game you can play at home: price up next year’s Gold Cup. It’s difficult to do this without influence from the prices that you already know. For example, I knew that Sir Des Champs was available at 10/1 for a while after the Jewson Chase (after 12/1 had made a fleeting cameo appearance) before being clipped into 8/1, and possibly even shorter after Synchronised and not Long Run had won the Gold Cup. But you can still have a fair stab at it.
I did this on Friday night. Sir Des Champs’s price was the only one I knew, so I started with him, 10/1. I really don’t know at what price I would have put him in had I not known what price he actually was. I think I would have thought that the bookmakers would have put him in at longer than I thought he should have been, if that makes sense. I think I might have priced him up at around 10/1 or 12/1, but I would have thought that the bookmakers would have said 14/1 or 16/1. Alas, I don’t know for sure. I like him a lot, it is difficult not to like him, but the best-available 6/1 now is far too short in my book.
There are a few other significant discrepancies as well. I have Synchronised in at 20/1 for a repeat win, the bookmakers have him in at no better than 10/1. It was a huge performance from horse and rider and trainer on Friday, but time may show that this year’s Gold Cup was not a vintage one. On top of that, the stats will be well against Synchronised next year. He will be 10, and no 10-year-old has won the Gold Cup since Cool Dawan in 1998. Also, Best Mate is still the only horse since L’Escargot to win back-to-back renewals.
There are others. I have Long Run in at 14, the bookmakers say no better than 10, I have Invictus in at 50, the bookmakers say no better than 25. I also have Burton Port and The Giant Bolster in at 50, with the bookmakers going no better than 33.
I have just four horses in at a shorter price than their current odds: First Lieutenant (14/1 on my tissue, best-priced 16/1 with the bookmakers), Last Instalment (20 v 25), Flemenstar (16 v 25) and Al Ferof (25 v 33).
Of those four, the greatest proportional discrepancy is in the last-named two, Flemenstar and Al Ferof, and they are the two who most interest me at present. Flemenstar is really interesting, he is only seven rising eight, and he is a hugely exciting talent. He was never going to Cheltenham this year, he was always staying at home, prepping for the Powers Gold Cup at Fairyhouse, and moving on from there.
The worry about him in the context of the Gold Cup is that all his best form is on soft ground. However, trainer Peter Casey doesn’t seem to have any worries about him on better ground, especially over a trip. He has been racing over two miles all season, but he seemed to stay two and a half miles well at Naas last Sunday. If he wins the Powers Gold Cup, on what should be goodish ground, then his Gold Cup odds could shorten. He could be a serious player next year.
Al Ferof needs a little more of a leap of faith, but he was among the very best two-mile novice chasers this season, a division that is often a good pointer to the following year’s Gold Cup, and he has always shaped as a stayer. Even when he won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle last season, he shaped like a stayer.
He is a high-class chaser whom you can’t judge on his Arkle run, his mistake at the fourth last simply ended his chance. His run to finish third behind Somersby and Finian’s Rainbow in the Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot in February was – Sprinter Sacre apart – one of the best performances that a novice chaser has put up this term. He may be more a King George than a Gold Cup horse but he is proven at Cheltenham, and you can be almost certain that he will improve for stepping up in trip this season. You never know, he just could improve enough from seven to eight to make up into a Gold Cup prospect.
Another thing that this exercise highlighted was the poor value that exists in the ante post market in general 12 months out. Bookmakers have priced up the named horses to just over 83%, even at best odds. That means that, in a 100% book, the odds on any other horse winning the race – and that includes Medermit and Weapon’s Amnesty and Riverside Theatre, as well as anything that might come out of left-field, as Synchronised did this year – is around 5/1. On my tissue, the named horses were priced up to 68%, which means that the odds on “Any other horse”, in a 100% book, is 9/4. That may be a more accurate reflection of reality.
Beware the unexpected. Twelve months is a long time in racing.
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