Top 10 Cheltenham Festival Tips

Top 10 Cheltenham Festival Tips:

1. Don’t get hammered on the train down to Cheltenham, as so many people do. You’ll end up making silly bets and lose all your cash.

2. Be wary of drinking too much Guinness, which is undoubtedly the trademark tipple at Cheltenham. An excess of Guinness can give you the shits, causing you to miss the action.

3. Don’t bet on every race. You don’t have to - if there’s a race (or two) where you’re struggling to find value, then sit it out. It’s like poker - you don’t bet on every hand, do you? Your wallet will thank you.

4. Never chase your losses. Set aside a certain amount to bet with per day and stick to it.

5. Don’t adopt a cod Oirish accent. The place is crawling with the Irish - some of them are drunk, have very red faces and big fists. (Anorak knows this from painful personal experience.)

6. Study the form - just because a horse is 16/1 doesn’t make it a decent each-way shout. Pin-stickers can have their luck, but do your homework and you greatly increase your odds.

7. Jockeys do make a real difference. The best jockeys usually win the big races, and that’s very much the case at Cheltenham.

8. Bet with one of the small on-course, tic-tac bookies, rather than the Tote. You’ll generally get better odds, especially if you stick around and keep an eye on the price boards.

9. Check out the ground (or “going”). It matters. Find out which horses like the ground and eliminate the ones that don’t. It’s not rocket science.

10. If you’ve not picked a winner all day, don’t be tempted to stay and stand around some guy taking bets on the toss of a coin. It happens - move on, nothing to see there.

Anorak

Posted: 11th, March 2009 | In: Sports Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink