The Cheltenham Festival is beginning to come firmly into view and Telegraph Sport is here to help you sharpen up your punting portfolios ahead of the most exciting four days in jump racing.
Between now and the opening day of the meeting, Telegraph Sport will bring you a host of top selections from handicaps to the Gold Cup itself that will hopefully help you to turn a profit at the meeting.
Each week, new selections from our team of crack tipsters will be posted on this page along with advised prices. We will also offer you new trends every few days focussing on a different race at the meeting to further inform your selections.
Whistler tips
Djelo (Ryanair Chase – March 13)
advised win at 14-1
The Venetia Willaims trained seven-year-old could be a Gold Cup horse in time but, at this stage of his career, the Ryanair is perfect.
He can be quite keen though he is learning with each run and they will go fast enough over two miles five furlongs at Cheltenham for him to settle and he does not lack a turn of foot as he showed in Saturday’s Denman Chase which, in truth, he had won as soon as Charlie Deutsch stuck him in the race four out.
The trainer is having a stellar season and the favourite, Fact To File, is very short in the betting. Djelo represents much better value even if Il Est Francais and Banbridge turn up.
Already tipped
Kopek Des Bordes (Supreme Novices Hurdle – March 11)
advised win at Evens
Telegraph Sport tips
The Big Westerner (Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle – March 14)
win at 7/1
The future for this mare is clearly going to be over fences but that does not mean winning a big prize of hurdles this season is beyond reach.
The Albert Bartlett can be a slog of a race with horses both needing to travel and genuinely stay to get up the punishing hill climb on the new course at Cheltenham.
Those two attributes appear already to be in the armoury of The Big Westerner, who 2m7f at Limerick on Boxing Day. She showed no sign of stopping when she hit the line that day and with at least one ahead of her in the Albert Bartlett market likely to be diverted elsewhere, 7/1 is a good price to take now
Already tipped
The Wallpark (Stayers’ Hurdle – March 13)
advised at 14-1
Trends
Supreme Novices’ Hurdle
Opening race of the meeting and one that often sets the tone for much of action on the course for the week to come.
There are both key things to ignore and key things to factor into your selection here. Winners in the last 12 years after all been five or six years of age, bar one, while ten of those winners were also successful last time out.
Eight of the last 12 winners were trained in Ireland, with five of those winning the Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown the month before the meeting.
Less important is course form (this always tends to be the case in novice races) but it is still worth noting that only four of the last 12 winners had run at Cheltenham before taking the race.
Arkle Novices’ Chase
A race in which it has paid to note the top of the market in recent seasons, with all but one of the last seven winners returning as favourite and 11 of the last 12 winning on their run prior to the festival.
This race is one for precocious, talented jumpers, with nine of the last 12 winners rated at 157 heading into the race and with ten of those 12 boasting at least one win at Grade 1 or Grade 2 level heading into the contest.
If there is one race at the Cheltenham where the trends offer up a compelling case for a winner time and again, this is it.
