Festival Focus - Champion Hurdle 2015

C-Irv Ball - Irving is my speculative outside bet to sneak a place in Tuesday's feature.

This year’s Champion Hurdle and Arkle currently leave me in somewhat of a quandary, because having backed the two now short-priced favourites for both races a while back and got something actually resembling a decent(ish) price I want to tip both for each respective race but I can’t bring myself to tip even money and odds on shots in Cheltenham festival races.

I truly believe that Faugheen and Un De Sceaux will both win on the opening day and in the process create yet another ‘Ruby Tuesday’ but with their prices both long gone the task now is finding some semblance of value left in both races so as not to come across like one of the many ‘boom merchants’ you find on Twitter these days celebrating ‘tipping’ a horse that is odds on.

The obvious value call in the Champion Hurdle is Jezki each-way at 6/1 as the big three look like being tough to keep out of the places. It seems lazy to simply go for that easy option though even if a seemingly easy return is usually desperately needed during Cheltenham week!

Beaten three times by Hurricane Fly this season Jezki was even beaten for second by Arctic Fire last time out, throwing an element of doubt on the big three will be the 1-2-3 argument mentioned above.

He did make a pretty serious blunder at the last flight that day though and his season has charted a similar course to last year when he of course claimed glory in this race.

I do think he’ll be seen to better effect at the festival, but I’m greedy and an eternal optimist so I’m going to look for a horse at a bigger price that could capitalise should one of the big three not fire and miss the frame.

Champion Hurdle Preview - Festival Focus

Let's Make a Rendezvous - Melodic Rendezvous is the value call in the Champion Hurdle

This year’s Champion Hurdle looks a truly vintage renewal and has long looked like being the best race of the festival this year.

The problem with that though is that there is very little value left in the market for a race that has been prominent in everyone’s thoughts since last year’s festival drew to a close.

There was a strong changing of the guard vibe around the champion hurdling division at the start of this season but reigning two-time champion Hurricane Fly has shown he is not going to hand over his crown without a fight by beating his two main challengers from his base in Ireland already this season.

The Fly has never really received the recognition he deserves in my opinion and people will undoubtedly still underestimate him until he is eventually packed off in to retirement.

Festival Focus - Champion Bumper

Big Willie Style - I'm hoping Mullins can win the Bumper again with Clondaw Court

The Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival can often be more of a minefield than some of the notoriously tricky-to-solve handicap races.

One stat that can always guide you though is that Willie Mullins usually has a very strong hand for the race – as evidenced by Champagne Fever’s victory in the race last year – and this year is no exception with several of the leading contenders at this stage looking likely to come from the Mullins yard.

The form of last year’s race is already working out very well this season with several of the horses from last year’s Bumper coming out and performing to a very high level this year, notably Jezki and The New One; so it is always a race to take note of for the following season’s novice hurdlers.

This year’s renewal also looks to feature a crop of horses that could potentially go on to achieve great things, but at this stage, knowing so little about many of them, it’s hard to know which will make it and which will sink without a trace.

Festival Focus - The Neptune

Part Puffin, Part Machine - Puffin Billy can win the Neptune on the way to superstardom

This years’ renewal of the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle (henceforth for the purposes of this piece ‘The Neptune’) has the potential to arguably be the race of the festival given some of the likely combatants.

Of course, as is the case with most of the novice hurdles at the festival some horses at the head of the betting may end up tackling further in the Albert Bartlett or shorter in the Supreme.

One thing is for certain though, even if we do lose one or two of the potential runners in this year’s Neptune we still look set for a truly vintage renewal of the race won so impressively last year by arguably the next big thing in chasing Simonsig.

The best place to start is probably with the most aptly named horse in a novice race – The New One. The Nigel Twiston-Davies inmate’s price has collapsed since his Warwick stroll the weekend before last and although he was undoubtedly impressive that day I’m not quite convinced that in a race with as much strength in depth as this year’s Neptune has that his current price quite reflects his chance.