Festival favourites warning

It's getting to that time of year again. The Cheltenham Festival is more than eight weeks away but it is already just about the only thing that racing enthusiasts want to talk about.

Fourteen of the Festival races have well-developed betting markets and we're all trying to do the clever thing, backing a March winner now and hopefully at much bigger odds than it will be on the day.

So this seems like the right moment for some cautionary tales. Like most other punters, we have trouble containing our enthusiasm as Cheltenham approaches and that quite often leads to bets that make you think afterwards: "Why on earth did I do that?"

Even horses that seemed bombproof to punters on the day of the race have been beaten at the Festival, which regularly provides the most competitive racing of the entire jumps season. If you imagine that you've got the game cracked, if you're aching to back a horse because you just can't see him getting beaten, take a moment to calm down. Any horse can be beaten at Cheltenham.

What follows is a cautionary countdown of five horses that were overbet to the most extreme degree over the past decade at the Festival. In that time, which covers nine race-meetings because the 2001 Festival was lost to foot and mouth, punters have been let down by 157 outright favourites, 77% of the total.

These choices do not include horses that went close to victory, which excludes a surprisingly large number. Of that 157, 32 were second and 22 third. Another 19 fell or unseated their rider, outcomes that cannot usually be predicted.

Still, that leaves 84 choices made by the betting market that can broadly be regarded as bad, and below is a list of the worst five. The list does not include any of the four shortest-priced beaten favourites, simply because it was hard to fault those choices. Baracouda (8-11 in the 2004 Stayers' Hurdle), Voy Por Ustedes (4-5 in last year's Ryanair Chase) and Kauto Star (10-11 for Denman's Gold Cup) were all high-quality horses who finished in second place. The other was Moscow Flyer, a 5-6 shot in the 2004 Champion Chase, when he unseated. Obviously he had some form on that score but, since he won his next seven races, including the same race the following year, it would be harsh to say that punters were silly to line up behind him, even at such short odds.

Clearly this is all with the benefit of hindsight, but it seems clear that the following five should not have started at such short odds. Their claims were much weaker than many punters were prepared to acknowledge. It would be a terrible shame if any of us were to make a similar howler in two months' time and punters should remember the fate of these 'good things' before betting heavily this year:

5) Sweet Wake

The Supreme Novice Hurdle offers precious little form to go on and attracts 'hotpots' – young horses whose reputation far outweighs anything they've actually proved on the track. Youlneverwalkalone was such a horse when he got beaten in 2000 at 5‑4. At least he ran third and he turned out to be very decent, eventually winning a handicap chase at the Festival.

No such excuses can be advanced for Sweet Wake, the 5-2 favourite in 2006. A Group Two winner on the Flat in Germany, he had been the very easy winner of both his starts over hurdles and, as was widely noted, he "could be anything".

When a horse "could be anything", punters tend to assume they will turn out to be very good indeed, but it is equally possible they will prove to be quite mediocre. The point about Sweet Wake was that he had not raced in graded company over hurdles and so there was no way of knowing how he would measure up against the best novices – and there were some good ones around that season. Noland had won three in a row, including the Tolworth, a Grade One, while his stablemate Natal had won four times and been tried in the Christmas Hurdle. Straw Bear was, like Sweet Wake, unbeaten in two runs over hurdles, but he was more than four times the price at 11-1.

There was another red flag against Sweet Wake. His trainer, Noel Meade, had a dismal record at the Festival. He would often dominate the early part of the winter in Ireland, at the time of year that Sweet Wake had won his early races, but his horses had often proved unable to fulfil their promise when shipped over to Gloucestershire. Meade has had three winners from 100 Festival runners over the past 10 years.

One of those three was Sausalito Bay, who had landed the Supreme in 2000 after winning the same two races in which Sweet Wake had warmed up. But Sausalito Bay had started at 14-1, odds that allow for the fact that his credentials were not the strongest. For punters to pour money on Sweet Wake at much shorter odds was madness.

He didn't run a bad race and was there with a chance on the run-in but found little and finished fifth, more than three lengths behind Noland. Just in front of him was Sublimity, a 16-1 shot because he had done little over hurdles to that point, though he became a champion hurdler the following year. That's the Supreme – you can be sure that some of the runners with no form will turn out to be very good, like War Of Attrition, who started at 33-1 in 2004.

When there could be horses like that in opposition, you'd be crazy to steam in on an untested favourite. Dunguib does not fall into that category, having won a Grade One last time, but anyone backing him now at 11-8 had better hope that the race lacks its normal strength in depth this year.


4) Decoupage

Half an hour after Youlneverwalkalone got turned over by Sausalito Bay, punters tried to get their money back on Decoupage in the Arkle Trophy. That showed forgiveness on their part because Decoupage had been a beaten favourite at the previous Festival, when second at 100–30 for the County Hurdle.

Decoupage had been beaten on his three previous visits to Cheltenham, though his form over obstacles elsewhere read: 12121211. Some horses don't show their best form at Cheltenham and you need to be at your very best at the Festival, where a high proportion of winners has either won at the course or never raced there before.

Decoupage was also an eight-year-old in a race where the trend has been towards younger, zippier animals. At this point, no horse of his age had won the Arkle for 10 years. From the vantage point of 2010, the trend is clearer still; the only horse as old as eight to win the Arkle in the past 20 years was Moscow Flyer and he was pretty good.

One of the factors that made Decoupage as short as 7-4 was that the second-favourite, Wahiba Sands, had never jumped a fence in public before. Those who backed that one at 9-2 can count themselves very silly indeed, but there was no shortage of talent elsewhere in the line-up, which included Tiutchev, Cenkos, Bellator, Fadalko, Frozen Groom and Commanche Court.

On his first run since December, Decoupage was never a 7-4 shot against that lot. He blundered his way around and finished third, beaten 16 lengths.


3) Kasbah Bliss

The fifth-shortest of all beaten favourites at the Festival over the past decade, Kasbah Bliss was a terrible bet at 10-11 for last year's World Hurdle, largely because he had been beaten on his four previous visits to Cheltenham. Why would you back a horse at odds-on to win a championship race at a course where he has only ever experienced defeat?

His chagrined supporters could argue that he had gone close to success in the same race when beaten only a length by the mighty Inglis Drever the previous year. But, crucially, that race was run on Cheltenham's Old Course. Last year's race was run on the more demanding New Course, also used for the 2007 race, when Kasbah Bliss had weakened badly into fifth, again behind Inglis Drever.

Yes, he was an impressive winner of his prep-race, a Grade Two at Haydock. But then he had been an impressive winner of the same race the year before and had still got beaten on his next start at the Festival. Even on soft ground, the perfectly flat Haydock cannot match the stamina test posed by the undulating Cheltenham.

No, we were not to know at this point that Big Buck's would turn out to be the machine that he has since proved to be. But he had won his two previous starts, both at Cheltenham, including a Grade One staying hurdle on his most recent outing. Punchestowns, another Grade One winner, was also in the field. In the circumstances, taking a short price about Kasbah Bliss was inviting disaster.

The hype had been stoked by the horse's trainer, François Doumen, who told reporters a month before the race that Kasbah Bliss was "probably a better horse" than his Baracouda, who had won the same race twice. In a sense, Doumen was right. Kasbah Bliss was last seen picking up £125,000 for finishing third in a Group One Flat race over a mile and a half in Hong Kong. There is no chance that Baracouda could have achieved such a thing.

That is because Baracouda was a proper staying hurdler, whereas Kasbah Bliss is not. He has masses of pace but he struggles to stay three miles in a championship race at Cheltenham, which is why he faded into fourth last year.

The form book is nearly always a better guide than anything that comes out of a trainer's mouth.


2) Beef Or Salmon

We don't intend his appearance on this list as any slight against a magnificent racehorse. This hardy chestnut won 19 races, including 10 Grade One chases. Over three miles on soft ground in Ireland, Beef Or Salmon was mustard. But he struggled at Cheltenham, as many a good horse had done before him, so why on earth was he made the 4-1 favourite for the Gold Cup in 2006? He had already been beaten in the race three times.

His first visit may have been the root cause of his subsequent English disappointments. Sent over for what turned out to be Best Mate's second Gold Cup, he was only a novice at the time and took a crashing fall at the third, causing a niggling back problem that troubled him for years.

In 2004 he was ridden as though the main intention was to restore his self-confidence, held up at the back and running on into fourth at the finish. We can see why punters might have been tempted to support him the following year, which Best Mate missed after bursting a blood vessel on the gallops at home. But he was just about the first horse beaten and was pulled up before the second-last as Kicking King ran on to glory.

After a history like that, who would dare to hope that he might finally wear the crown? In three attempts, Beef Or Salmon had yet to make the frame and was now aged 10, as old as any winner since 1969. OK, there were no previous Gold Cup heroes in the field, but there were 21 other runners of varying degrees of ability. Surely one of those had better claims than a horse who appeared unable to cope with the course?

As it turned out, 10 of them had better claims. Beef Or Salmon put up a better effort than he had the year before but he was still beaten a long way out and finished 11th, 19 lengths behind War Of Attrition.

Bafflingly, he was sent back for another go in 2007 and trailed home 13th, 35 lengths behind Kauto Star, but punters had learned what his connections had not. He was a 16-1 shot that time, the sort of odds he should have been the year before.


1) Fair Along

This tough little eight-year-old is easy to like and he approached the 2007 Festival on a roll, having won his first three races over fences. He was made the 100-30 favourite for the Arkle but things didn't work out for him – he was knocked about in scrimmaging at the start, couldn't get to the lead as he had in his previous runs and was hampered by a faller at the second-last. Even then, he showed grit in battling his way to second place but he looked exhausted as he crossed the line.

Given that he had so obviously had a hard race, it is astonishing to me that connections would even consider turning him out again the same week. But, when the declarations were published for the County Hurdle, three days after the Arkle, there was Fair Along's name in the midst of them.

It is by no means impossible to win the County Hurdle a few days after running in another race. Floyd, Moody Man (trained, like Fair Along, by Philip Hobbs) and Blowing Wind all won it five days after winning the Imperial Cup at Sandown on the Saturday before the Festival. But recovering from a handicap hurdle and recovering from a championship race over fences are not the same thing and Fair Along had two days less in which to bounce back than those Imperial Cup winners.

In strict handicapping terms, a case could be made for him because of his fine effort behind his stablemate Detroit City in the previous year's Triumph Hurdle. But Fair Along had been beaten off lower marks on his two attempts in handicap hurdles. Also, there was the question of whether his speed may have been blunted by his new career as a chaser; he had not raced over the smaller obstacles since October.

Presumably, Fair Along gave signs of having recovered from the Arkle. That would help to explain why he was backed down to 3-1 on the day of the County but, if so, those close to him were deceived. Soon after the second-last, he dropped out and eventually finished 25th, beaten 38 lengths.

It was an abject performance that stands out on his record as being quite out of character. But the danger was there for all to see who had watched him three days before. Very few horses deserve to be as short as 3-1 for a race as competitive as the County and there was no room in those odds for the obvious risk that Fair Along would have no more to give.