Timefigure analysis of Cheltenham Festival 2023 antepost yankee

Another blank week of jumps racing has forced me, not unreluctantly I should add, to widen the scope of the column this week.

The latest prolonged cold snap might not have been as severe as some of those in my living memory – December in 1981 in Newcastle in my second year at Uni living in a soon-to-be-condemned terrace in Elswick with three others when the average monthly daily temperature of -3.3 degrees was the lowest on record for the area, according to the nearby Newton Aycliffe weather station in Durham, still brings back memories - but it was still disruptive enough to sink several all-weather fixtures.

Back in the day we’d have been accommodated by ITV switching their World Of Sport cameras on Saturday to the colourful Harringay (as it was then) greyhound track, a venue that once saw six fire engines called to disperse a rioting crowd and where Joe Coral once pulled a gun on mobster and ‘king of the racecourse gangs’ turned bookmaker Darby Sarbini, later immortalized in Peaky Blinders.

As it was with nothing to watch and not fancying another Saturday afternoon in Leeds Trinity Primark, witnessing the modern-day equivalent of tug of war, I found myself instead trawling through some past action in a bid to uncover a pre-Christmas ante-post yankee for the 2023 Cheltenham Festival.

Before I get to that, one race I haven’t yet covered in the absence of a column last week is the Grade 3 Stayers Novice Hurdle at Cork on December 11 won by Hiddenvalley Lake, a horse I’ve had a lot of time for a long time for reasons I will come to soon.

There was much to like about his stylish win, not least the way in which he skipped clean away from his rivals after the last, running the distance from the last flight to the winning line almost exactly as fast as his stable-mate and smart prospect Arctic Bresil had managed in the previous race (despite running a final circuit over two seconds faster and over a trip supposedly nearly a mile further).

Only reservations about the exact distance the race was run over prevented me from returning a much higher timefigure than the conservative 121 that I ended up deciding upon. Hiddenvalley Lake’s performance hasn’t gone unnoticed elsewhere, but what reassures me most about it is that it vindicated the high rating I gave him in the Irish 2021-2022 point to point season when he was my second highest-rated horse that ran solely in points and only a few pounds short of the level Billaway (rated 138 by Timeform) managed in hunter chases.

I’ve been keeping Irish point ratings for several seasons and have found them largely to be an accurate predictor of subsequent performance on the track for all there are those that don’t progress as hoped after being sold for big sums and joining professional yards. Unlike most ‘conventional’ rating systems, the one I devised - because ‘collateral’ form is rarely of any use given the cream of the pointing crop are usually only ever seen once before they reach the Sale ring - focusses largely on reported overall time (which I have found to be accurate enough for this purpose) and hand-taken sectionals with the subsequent ratings tied loosely to race class before a further adjustment is made for ground or race deterioration as the meeting goes on. There are pitfalls to be aware of, chief among which are beaten distances being incorrect, but I’ve found this approach works very well in identifying horses whose merit isn’t fully reflected by publicly available ratings.

By way of illustration, Tuesday's Naas winner Journey With Me, now with Henry de Bromhead, figured among my top five pointers in the 2020-2021 season, as well as two horses who are no longer with us, Grand Jury, who never really had a proper chance to show what he could do on the track and Ginto, who would almost certainly have won the 2022 Albert Bartlett had he not broken down.

Top of the pops in 2019-2020 were Petibonome (presumably had a problem as hasn’t been seen for eighteen months), the Supreme runner-up Ballyadam and the very promising but ill-fated Reality Cheque; while the class of 2018-2019 had Adrimel and Sporting John among my top five while Asterion Forlonge, Envoi Allen and Andy Dufresne featured among the top eight in 2017-2018.

That backdrop is more than enough to have told me before he made his Rules debut that Hiddenvalley Lake very likely had what it takes to make his mark in very good company, but even so it’s good to see him going that way on the track and it would be no surprise if he ended up going close in the Albert Bartlett.

Those interested in following a couple of others from last year’s top half-dozen, I’d recommend Halka Du Talbert and Hurricane Highway. The former looked a very smart prospect when winning a mares’ bumper at Naas last month while the latter made a perfectly adequate debut for Evan Williams at Chepstow behind Paul Nicholls’ Knowsley Road in a maiden that has already thrown up three next-time-out-winners.

Cheltenham Festival yankee

• LUCCIA - Mares' Novice Hurdle
• A PLUS TARD - Boodles Gold Cup
• GAILLARD DU MESNIL - National Hunt Chase
• LOSSIEMOUTH - Triumph Hurdle

Anyway, on to the yankee. There’s nothing more anticipatory over the next couple of months than the prospect of landing a bumper Cheltenham, so I’ll pursue that end with my timing hat on for the remainder of this column and, to be honest, I don’t think pulling it off is too onerous despite the Festival still being three months away. So, let's have a bash.

The first horse that makes the four is LUCCIA in the Mares’ Novices' Hurdle, for the simple reason that I’m not sure the enormity of her debut win at Newbury has been fully appreciated even though she is currently favourite for her Cheltenham target.

The winner of both her bumpers in impressive fashion, she was supposed to start her latest campaign off in a bumper again at Cheltenham but instead found herself lining up for a Listed Mares’ contest in which she was the only one of the seven runners without any prior experience over hurdles.

Not only she did she win impressively in a smart 130 timefigure after starting a strongly-backed favourite, she also ran the last half-furlong according to the Course Track sectionals half a second faster than the BHA 146-rated First Street managed when winning the Listed Gerry Feilden on the same card as well as well as running the last two furlongs as well as final furlong faster without getting anything other than one tap behind the saddle.

Luccia might have carried 14lb less than First Street but factor in the fact she’s a four-year-old mare whereas her stable-companion is a year-older battle-hardened handicapper who ran the last four furlongs of the County Hurdle at the last Festival faster than all his other rivals that day other than the horse - State Man - who is now second favourite for the Champion Hurdle then the 4/1 currently doesn’t look bad value to me.

Looking back through those 2022 Cheltenham Festival Course Track sectionals again, there were only four horses that ran the last half mile over 2¼ seconds faster than any of their rivals. Two of those are currently odds on for the Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase respectively; another is out for the season (The Nice Guy) while the other, who has nothing to prove other than his well-being, is available at 9/1.

That horse, of course, is A PLUS TARD, who has won at two of the three last Cheltenham Festivals. A little bit must be taken on trust, of course, in that whatever ailed him at Haydock in the Betfair Chase hasn’t had any lasting effects, but you don’t get many chances to back a proven still-young top-class performer who was so dominant in a 178 timefigure in March at his current odds, even acknowledging Galopin Des champs won well at Punchestown on Monday, so for the Gold Cup he’s the second selection.

The third selection who is worth getting onside ahead of his Christmas engagements, given that L’Homme Presse could end up paying him a big compliment should he win the King George, and the races he is entered for himself are again short of his optimum, is GAILLARD DU MESNIL.

L’Homme Presse might have won the Brown Advisory on merit last season, but Gaillard Du Mesnil was the only horse that ran faster than he did in the final half mile and that despite having to avoid the fallen Farouk D’Alene two out in a race that didn’t test his stamina enough (winner’s timefigure was just 131).

A subsequent third in the Irish Grand National upped to three and three-quarter miles suggests to me the National Hunt Chase is the race he has been pencilled in for and the performance he put up there (third off a mark of 154) together with his reappearance second behind Mighty Potter in the Grade 1 Drinmore suggests that race has his name all over it for all Chemical Energy looked good earlier in the year. 11/4 could look very big come March.

I considered Ferns Lock for the Hunter Chase for the final selection but half the battle is getting the horse there in the first place and with no indication yet he is a confirmed runner with his stable also housing the current favourite, then LOSSIEMOUTH at 5/2 for the JCB Triumph Hurdle completes the quartet.

Her timefigure when beating Zarak The Brave at Fairyhouse on her hurdling debut wasn’t fast but her time from the last hurdle to the winning line was compared to the other races on the day after running near-identical final circuits after breezing into the race on the bridle.

Her hurdling technique at both Auteuil and Fairyhouse was very slick, and though the runner-up might hurdle better himself in a more strongly run affair, I always like having a horse with a turn of foot on my side. Being a filly, she gets all the allowances yet looks a very strong physical specimen not in need of one, so it’s hard to find any negatives. She’s 5/2 generally.

A £1 win yankee bet and a total outlay of £11 potentially returns over £1350 should all four selections win. Good luck!

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