Racing news and tips: Bookies hope for 2017 Cheltenham Festival bonanza

A bookmakers’ scramble to attract punters’ bets on the Cheltenham Festival handicap races starts in earnest in the next 10 days when entries for the events are published this Thursday, with the weights revealed on Wednesday, 1 March.

Competition will be fierce between firms, with established ones seeking to increase, or at least hold, their market share against newer organisations attempting to gain a foothold. Ten of the 28 races at the 2017 Festival are handicaps but – on the evidence of astonishingly dismal performances by favourites over the last three years – they offer hugely lucrative profit margins for the layers.

Industry sources estimated on Sunday that betting turnover on next month’s four-day Festival will be around £400m, including online, in shops and on the track. About 20% of that turnover will be on the handicaps. TV advertising by bookmakers will be intense as, closer to race-days, firms parade special offers.

The frenzy is understandable. Handicap winners in the last three years have included outsiders such as 33-1, 28-1, 25-1, 25-1, 16-1 and 14-1. Big-priced horses do not go unbacked but bookmakers’ liabilities are heavily loaded disproportionately towards the most fancied runners.

At the 2016 meeting no handicap favourite finished first and only one outright handicap favourite managed to even reach the frame. Some bookies offered an extra incentive, fifth place, in big-field handicaps – but that did not help each-way punters much. The favourites’ finishing places in last year’s 10 handicaps were: seventh, sixth, 22nd, 10th, ninth, joint-favourites pulled up and fell, unseated rider, joint-favourites fourth and unseated rider, seventh and third.

In 2015 none of the favourites in the 11 handicaps won – only two were placed. Honours for the last Cheltenham handicap favourite to succeed go to Fingal Bay in the 2014 Pertemps Network Final, the only one to win that year.

A representative of one leading UK bookmaking firm, who did not wish to be named, said on Sunday: “Because of the competitive nature of these handicaps, it does seem to have been fairly tricky recently to find the winners of them. Having said that, it is very costly for bookmakers, due to the popularity of these races, when the most fancied horses do win.”

At Navan on Sunday the Gordon Elliott stable secured another decent prize when Sutton Place wore down his stable companion De Plotting Shed to win the Boyne Hurdle. Sutton Place was the 4-6 favourite to gain a fifth successive victory and eventually did so in good style under Barry Geraghty, whose mount forged clear in the closing stages of the two-mile-five-furlong journey.

When asked if the JP McManus-owned six-year-old would be supplemented for a race at Cheltenham, Elliott added: “No, definitely not. He’s a nice horse and he’s a big chaser in the making, really. I’d say that ground just wasn’t ideal for him but he showed his class.

“We were riding him maybe a little negatively with the trip. Barry said he’s a horse that you’d be better off grabbing a hold of and riding a race. He was a bit sloppy with his jumping because we wanted him relaxed. Chasing will be his game and whatever he does this year will be a bonus.”

The Cotswolds are in the sights of Sandra Hughes, however, after her Acapella Bourgeois produced a remarkable front-running performance in Navan’s Ten Up Novice Chase.

The seven-year-old was a 7-2 chance. It was apparent a long way from home that the Sandra Hughes-trained gelding had his rivals in serious trouble. Tackling three miles for the first time over fences, there was no sign of Acapella Bourgeois stopping as he continued on his merry way to seal an emphatic victory by 32 lengths.

“He’s in the RSA Chase and you’d have to say after today we would be travelling, but we’ll see what the ground is like,” Hughes said. “If it came up very good, which you never know at Cheltenham, he might give it a miss. At the moment if it was nice, soft ground we’d have to take our chance.”

Michael O’Leary said at Navan that he plans to run Don Poli and Outlander in the Gold Cup after he again reiterated his displeasure at the weights allotted to some of horses in the Grand National.

The National weights were revealed on Tuesday evening and O’Leary’s Gigginstown Stud is responsible for three of the top four horses, in Outlander, Don Poli and Empire Of Dirt.

Despite claiming Don Poli could be beaten “two furlongs” by the ante-post favourite, Thistlecrack, in the Gold Cup, O’Leary still intends to let him take his chance in the blue riband, along with Lexus winner Outlander.

The Ryanair chief executive said: “If they all arrive fit and well it’s likely we’ll run Outlander and Don Poli in the Gold Cup and probably Sub Lieutenant and Empire Of Dirt in the Ryanair Chase. I think the Ryanair is the logical race for Empire Of Dirt to go in. I would love to win it, I’ve spent 10 years trying to without any great success. With Sub Lieutenant and Empire Of Dirt we’ll have a reasonable team.”

Today’s tips

Lingfield

1.50 Coyocan 2.20 Champagne Chaser 2.50 Clonusker 3.25 Arian 4.00 Onderun 4.35 Not Never 5.05 Dont Do Mondays

Carlisle

2.00 Catamaran Du Seuil 2.30 Lord Ballim 3.00 The Cobbler Swayne 3.35 Minella Fiveo (nb) 4.10 Beg To Differ 4.45 Onwiththeparty (nap) 5.15 Dublin Indemnity

Wolverhampton

2.10 Goldmadchen 2.40 Bush House 3.10 Dunquin 3.45 Boom The Groom 4.20 Berlios 4.55 Billyoakes 5.25 Rutherford 5.55 Jumping Jack