Stats to help you nail the Cheltenham Festival Handicap Hurdle winners...

Published: Fri, 03/06/20

The Handicap Hurdle contests at the Cheltenham Festival have to be some of the absolute toughest puzzles to solve in the entire National Hunt season, right?

If you do nail a winner or two, however, then chances are you'll be handsomely rewarded, with 18 of the last 24 Cheltenham Festival Handicap Hurdles (non-novice) being won by a horse at odds of between 9-1 and 33-1.

I'm now in deep-dive mode with regards to trends and stats for the festival, making sure everything is in shape and the ducks are fully in line for next week for members of the full NTF service.

Indeed I've just posted the latest 'early look' trends guide, this time with full focus on the GOLD CUP.

I've already provided members with a trends/stats look at the following...

Guides that sit alongside the Trainer Trend Files for...

...so plenty to keep members entertained until I'm ready to produce the full race analysis guides next week!

>>You can get access to those guides here

...back to those uber-competitive hurdles though and to give you guys a helping hand with your own analysis, here's a selection of stats to help you Narrow The Field...

At the last six Cheltenham Festivals there have been 24 Non-Novice Handicap Hurdles and 586 runners...

24/24 (winners) ran in a Hurdle race LTO (Those that didn’t run in a Hurdle race LTO are 0/63, 11p)

Those that ran in a race worth 75k+ to the winner LTO are 0/51, 7p

Those that ran in a race worth LESS than 8k to the winner are 0/78, 8p

(so ideally you want something that ran in a Hurdle race worth more than 8k but less than 75k LTO)

23/24 had 5 or less Handicap Hurdle starts (Those with 6 or more Handicap Hurdle starts are 1/179, 16p)

23/24 had 0-1 previous Handicap Hurdle wins (Those with 2+ Handicap Hurdle wins are 1/168, 21p || 3+ Handicap Hurdle wins are 0/79, 8p)

23/24 were 2lbs+ higher than their last winning mark (those that were not are 1/57 | 1.75% S/R)

23/24 ran at C3 level+ LTO (Those that ran a C4 level or below LTO are 1/54, 8p)

23/24 had 18 or less career starts (Those with 19+ career starts are 1/158 | 0.5% S/R)

22/24 had 9 or less Hurdle starts (Those with 10+ Hurdle starts are 2/222, 17p)

22/24 recorded a placed effort on one of their last three starts (those that hadn't are 2/89 | 2% S/R)

21/22 were ridden by a jockey WITHOUT a claim (Claiming jockeys are 3/125 | 2.5% S/R)

Claimers with a claim of 5lbs+ are 1/73 | 1% S/R – 6 places

Only 3/24 started as an outright FAVOURITE last time out (only 4/24 started as fav or joint/co fav)

Some VERY interesting pointers in there and in what can be potential mine-fields the above should at least give you a starting point to whittle down the massive fields.

To get your hands on the full NTF stats coverage, as well as everything else I'm doing for Cheltenham 2020, click on the following image...

Grab your NTF Cheltenham slot today!

Ben (NTF)

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