Cheltenham Festival Analysis: A 25-1 poke for the Fred Winter...

Published: Sun, 03/12/17

Twas the Sunday before Cheltenham...

So I thought I'd get stuck into a bit of Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle analysis!
As you do...

Even better for you guys I thought I'd share that analysis with you today.

I also wanted to share with you some recent examples of my NTF analysis guides. Before people sign up for my services I often get asked what exactly my analysis entails, so I thought the best way to show that would be with visual evidence of some of the races I've covered in the past month. The example guide is attached with this email for you all to download...

But back to the Fred Winter Analysis...

This isn't a race that appears on my 20 race schedule for full NTF members but I wanted to start getting it on my radar, with a view to future inclusion on the full service.

In fairness it's probably one of the trickiest races to master over the 4 days, with four of the last five winners returning at 25/1, 33/1, 25/1 & 40/1.

In fact seven of the 12 winners have gone off at an SP of 14/1 or bigger.

No denying that when it comes to tricky Cheltenham Festival puzzles this one is bang up there!

I don't mind that though, in fact I relish it, especially when it's a race that is starting to look strong on the trends front.

There are currently 37 horses still entered in the race so to cut that down to a manageable shortlist I used the following three trends...

1  11/12 had an OR of 133 -124 (0/57 OR 134+ | 1/68 OR 123 & below)

2  11/12 ran within the past 45 days (1/67 DSLR 46+)

3  12/12 had between 1 & 5 previous Hurdle starts (0/31 6+ hurdle starts)
 
 
Amazingly that cuts the field down to the following seven runners...


DOMPERIGNON DU LYS

RAINBOW DREAMER

DIABLE DE SIVOLA

DREAMCATCHING

DINO VELVET

FINAL CHOICE

PERCY STREET



To whittle that down further I pulled in the following trends...


4   11/12 top 2 finish 1 of last 3 starts

5   11/12 ran in a Non-Handicap Hurdle last time out

6   11/12 were FR or IRE bred



RAINBOW DREAMER, DINO VELVET, FINAL CHOICE & PERCY STREET each fall down on one of those trends so I'll tentatively drop them from the shortlist.

That then leaves...

DOMPERIGNON DU LYS (N Henderson)

DIABLE DE SIVOLA (N Williams)

DREAMCATCHING (P Nicholls)

All three are guaranteed a run in this and none of them hold any other entries, which, lets face it, is a big part of the battle when looking to get your money down at this stage.

I may potentially end up having all three on side on the day but at the minute there is only one of that three that interests me...
 
 
DIABLE DE SIVOLA from the Nick Williams yard is the one that interests me the most and at current odds of 25-1 I'm more than happy to get involved.

Nick Williams went excruciatingly close to landing the Fred Winter last year with his Coo Star Sivola, with that one finishing a close third to the Paul Nicholls trained Diego Du Charmil, going down by an agonizing 3/4 length at the line. 

Diable De Sivola looks, however, a prime candidate to make up for that close call. The 4yo ran 2nd behind hot Triump fav Defi Du Seuil over C&D in a G2 in November, finishing 2L behind the Hobbs horse whilst giving it 4lbs, with 58L back to the third placed horse. Yes he was probably flattered to have finished so close to that one in the end but it was still an eye-catching performance and the fact the remainder were so far in arrears is probably a better indicator of his class than how close he finished to the winner. 

They eased off him after that before returning him to the track at Doncaster last month, a race where he moved smoothly until the home-straight before fitness begun to tell and he faded into 3rd. That was, however, his first run for 102 days so he should come on significantly for that outing and the run should have him spot on for the Fred Winter.

With a solid trends profile. a trainer and jockey who will be out to make up for last season's close call and eye-catching form in the book the 25/1 on offer (NRNB) looks well worth a dabble.

The other two that made the preliminary shortlist (DOMPERIGNON DU LYS & DREAMCATCHING) will remain on my radar for the race and I'll give them further thought come final decs.

Best of luck if getting involved...

Ben (NTF)

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