Cheltenham Festival Handicaps 2018

Marble said:
Just read this from Lydia Hislop on The Sporting Life website.

"In the Ultima Handicap Chase, Shantou Flyer finally gets to step back up to three miles after shaping as if in absolute need of it for most of this season. Heavy ground suits him just fine and a switch of headgear – something that produced a spike of form in January – is a further positive, not to mention James Bowen’s 3lb claim."

Good stuff, Lydia! :)
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Great run for your money, marble.

Another big compliment to Frodon.
 
Marble said:
I recently had my first proper look through The Ultima. I'm drawn to Shantou Flyer. His Cheltenham record reads 1F1422. He's only just turned 8 years of age, but plenty of excellent form to put him in with a shout of getting in the frame. He gave a lot of weight away to Big River when second the last day at Kelso. Overall, I'm happy with Shantou Flyer progress this season. He's shown he's worth his salt since the cheek pieces were applied. A real searching gallop next month and he'll be going and staying-on when many others are going backwards.
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Close but no cigar, although I got each way cash!

A good confidence booster for the rest of the week.
 
Marble said:
One part of this is certainly true, (with just the 14 entered :) ), JP wins The Coral Cup!!!

I like Alan King's River Frost myself, (appropriately named and could be a surprise package).

Forgive and forget the last pulled up effort, if he runs here he'll be A1. He was a good 9th in this race last season, (one of just four 5 year olds to contest the race). Now a year older which should help his cause. The break is perfect for him. He's done enough to make me believe he's probably better than what he's shown.
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Roll on this race tomorrow! :)
 
It may well be my pocket talking but I think Geraghty threw that Pertemps final away, trying to be too clever from two out. I was screaming at him to kick on because I could see Delta Work closing him down but he took another pull after the last.
 
Then again jockey after jockey has kicked off the turn and got caught this week - normally with my money on it !
 
they have so much ammo that a lot of their stable lesser lights are well handicapped...storyteller was a plot job for sure but he's prob not a grade 1 horse...but some of the other handicappers are just coming into that 140-150 band because they running against higher rated horses all the time at home

if some of mullins, elliott second or third strings were trained by other trainers - say in the soft small runner sat races in uk - they would have won some softer races and ended up rated 155-160 territory
 
General consensus pre festival was that Phil Smith had been more than fair with the Irish. They are absolutely dominating, the places as well as the winners.


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Ardross said:
I suspect the going may have something to do with their complete dominance.
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maybe for one or two but head in the sand to think mullins and elliott aren't an absolute street ahead of everyone else, british and irish based, in the game in terms of the ammunition they have.
 
Everything running tomorrow in purple with a white star is just a sea of blue on Oddschecker.

Even The Game Changer
 
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