Trading Talk – Cheltenham Day One

The roar of the tapes going up at the start of the Supreme Novices’ is enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, but it is exactly the same for spread bettors sat at home on their laptops. Those looking to find the profile of the winner of the first race should normally focus on the other side of the Irish Sea, as seven of the last nine winners have been trained in Ireland. Dunguib will be one of the hottest favourites on the Sporting Index win index during the entire week and there will be plenty of spread bettors looking to both buy and sell his spread. One worry for his fans – and those selling meeting SPs – is that you have to go back six years for the last successful favourite in this race. Since then there has been a 20/1 and 40/1 winner so the spread betting public buying SPs will be hoping Tuesday starts with a bang – by a long shot scooting clear.

Winning distances is another big spread betting market during the four days and there has only been one winner come more than 3 lengths clear in the past six runnings. That was Arcalis at 20/1 in 2005, who romped home by 6 lengths, but the most common winning distance in the past decade has been a neck which has happened in four of the past eight races.

The Arkle is slightly different, as although winning distance spread sellers will have been delighted with last year’s short-head margin, Tidal Bay bounded clear by 13 lengths the previous year. This is the championship for 2 mile novice chasers and spread bettors up and down the land will be trying to unearth next year’s Champion Chase winner. It has gone to a seven-year-old in four of the past five runnings and French-bred horses have won seven of the last 15 renewals. Spread bettors selling SPs will be pleased to hear that only one favourite has won since 2002, but they won’t be quite as pleased when they realise that all of the last nine winners have been single-figure prices.

The highlight of the opening day’s card is the Champion Hurdle, a race which was won by 22/1 shot Punjabi 12 months ago – the second biggest priced winner in the past 20 years. He beat Celestial Halo by just a neck that day so it showed how well winning distance spread sellers were doing after the first few races last year. However, it’s not always such a tight contest and you only have to go back to Rooster Booster in 2003 for an 11-length winning distance.

Punjabi was beaten in his prep race last year, which is usually a bad sign for spread bettors playing the race win index, as 22 of the past 26 winners had all won their race immediately before the Champion Hurdle. He was the second English-trained horse to win in the past two years, but prior to that Ireland had taken the previous four crowns so spread punters will have to decide which nation they are going to put their faith in this time around.