Cheltenham Festival Statistics | Gordon Elliott's record with handicap hurdlers
Adam Houghton reveals another key stat to keep in mind for the Cheltenham Festival.
KEY STAT
£67.06 – Gordon Elliott’s profit to a £1 level stake at Betfair SP if backing every one of his runners in handicap hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival since 2017
There is a very strong case to be made that Gordon Elliott has made a more immediate impact at the Cheltenham Festival than any other National Hunt trainer in history.
After all, it was only in 2011 that Elliott saddled his first winner at the meeting – Chicago Grey in the National Hunt Chase – and a little over a decade later, he now sits sixth amongst the most successful trainers in the history of the Festival with 32 winners.
It’s worth comparing Elliott’s record with that of the men who sit above him in the rankings to demonstrate just how rapid his rise to the top has been.
For example, Willie Mullins is the leading all-time trainer at the Cheltenham Festival with 78 winners, but it wasn’t until 19 years after his first Festival winner – Tourist Attraction in the 1995 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle – that he matched Elliott’s tally of 32.
It’s a similar story with Nicky Henderson, who sent out the first of his 70 winners at the Festival in 1985 but didn’t reach 32 until 2009, nearly 25 years later. Paul Nicholls with 46 winners is the only other active trainer to have enjoyed more success at the Festival than Elliott, but it took him another 13 years to reach 32 winners after his first in 1999.
Fulke Walwyn saddled 40 Festival winners between 1946 and 1986, while Martin Pipe sent out 34 winners at the meeting between 1981 and 2006. However, it’s surely just a matter of time before Elliott surpasses that pair, still a relatively young man at the age of 43, after all.
The momentum has really picked up in recent years as Elliott saddled at least three winners at every Cheltenham Festival between 2016 and 2020, including eight in just 2018 alone, equalling the record for the most winners at a single meeting.
Of course, Elliott didn’t have any horses running in his name at the 2021 Festival – the reasons for the six-month suspension he was serving at the time have been well documented – so he is sure to be hungrier than ever as he prepares a typically strong squad for this year’s fixture.
Handicap hurdlers under the spotlight
One department in which Elliott is traditionally very strong is the handicap hurdlers, with 10 of his 32 winners at the Cheltenham Festival falling into this category, including seven at just the last four meetings at which Elliott had runners.
The exceptions are Carlito Brigante and Diamond King, winners of the Coral Cup in 2011 and 2016 respectively, and Flaxen Flare, who won the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle in 2013.
In 2017, Elliott won the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle with Champagne Classic, a poignant success in a race named after his long-time mentor. He repeated the dose 12 months later with Blow By Blow, who memorably gave the trainer his eighth victory of the week.
Elliott had already struck in the Fred Winter with Veneer of Charm earlier in the week, as well as the Pertemps Network Final Handicap Hurdle in which Delta Work led home a one-two for the stable.
The Pertemps Final is a race in which Elliott has built up a particularly formidable record in recent years, winning the last three editions in which he saddled runners. Sire du Berlais was responsible for the victories in both 2019 and 2020, becoming just the second horse this century to register back-to-back wins in the race.
Elliott also won the Fred Winter for a third time in 2020 as Aramax emerged as the best of the stable’s five runners. The race was essentially dominated by Elliott who, overall, saddled three of the first four and five of the first nine past the post.
Indeed, it’s not just the winners which demonstrate how adept Elliott is when it comes to preparing his runners for the handicap hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival – since 2017, the yard has sent out not only seven winners in such races but also five seconds, five thirds and three fourths.
Elliott’s record for this period is head and shoulders above that of his rivals by virtually every measure.
In total, 13 different trainers have saddled 10 or more runners in handicap hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival since 2017. None of the others can match Elliott’s tally of seven winners – Mullins is next best with four – while his strike rate of 13.21% (7/53) also sees him ranked first ahead of Joseph O’Brien (9.09%, 2/22) and Dan Skelton (7.14%, 2/28).
Perhaps the most striking statistic is a profit of 67.06 points at BSP. Veneer of Charm was the longest-priced winner when landing the Fred Winter at odds of 50.0, but the other six were all relatively well fancied, returning an average BSP of 11.68. Skelton is the only other trainer to be in profit – to the tune of 58.89 points – from a similar sample size of runners.
Elliott also has a Timeform Run-To-Form percentage (RTF%) of 58.49% to underline that his horses generally perform well in this division, even if they don’t always win.
For context, out of the 12 other trainers to have saddled 10 or more runners in handicap hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival since 2017, only Denise Foster (70%) has a higher RTF% after saddling two seconds and a fourth amongst 10 runners at the meeting last year.
Of course, there is a very important distinction to be made here as they were all horses previously trained by Elliott before his suspension was announced and Foster took over the reins at Cullentra House Stables. Elliott had done all the groundwork up to a week before the Festival began.
A few to note for the 2022 Cheltenham Festival
Back to this year and the five handicap hurdles will again be a significant point of interest as Elliott attempts to move off the 32-winner mark at the Cheltenham Festival.
The handicap entries aren’t released until towards the end of February, but you can guarantee that Elliott will be mob-handed. A quick look at the ante-post betting lists will tell you as much.
In the Martin Pipe, for example, Elliott is responsible for several of the market leaders, many of them unexposed sorts who are yet to be tested in handicap company. Chemical Energy, Gerri Colombe and Three Stripe Life are just three horses who come into this category.
Britzka and The Tide Turns stand out as a couple of the stable’s more interesting contenders for the Fred Winter as things stand, while the qualifying process for the Pertemps Final hopefully makes it a bit easier to identify Elliott’s likeliest runners in that contest.
Already as short as 8/1 with some firms, Dunboyne is very much one to be interested in after catching the eye in the qualifier run at Leopardstown’s Christmas Meeting. After meeting trouble on more than one occasion, he kept on well under hands-and-heels riding late on to pass the post only seven lengths behind the winner, looking unlucky not to finish closer still.
Elliott can call upon several others who have already qualified for the Pertemps Final, including dual winner Sire du Berlais, who filled the runner-up spot in the Stayers’ Hurdle instead of attempting the hat-trick at last year’s Festival. He will have the option of both those races again in 2022 after finishing fourth in the qualifier run at Warwick earlier this month.
Ardhill and Mr Fred Rogers, on the other hand, both feature prominently in the ante-post betting for the Pertemps Final despite currently being ineligible to run. It will be no surprise to see them turn out in a qualifier in the coming weeks if the market is any guide.
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