Festival Winners and Losers

H

HawkWing

At the Start
Joined
Mar 17, 2009
Messages
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Im sure Ive missed lots and could go on. Not sure all of these are well thought through

Winners:
Mr Alan Potts - Has tried to fit square pegs in round holes before in search of a Gold Cup winner. Guessing he is a combustible character but achieved what he wanted
Gordon Elliot - At the edges for a few years, but now in the big time and no sign of leaving anytime soon
Willie Mullins - Would have been in the losers list on Wednesday evening.
Female jockeys (Frost, O'Neill, Andrews) - despite Katie Walsh letting some down - good for the sport
Nicky Henderson - old school class. Those crabbing Buveur d'air
Jessie Harrington - old school class, doesnt matter the type of horse, 12 month handicap plot in Rule the World, added to the obvious
Ruby Walsh - Leaving personality aside, thursday showed how great a jockey he is
Jamie Codd - The new Derek O'Connor
Pat Kelly - not easy to do that
Might Bite - the closest to a jaw dropping performance this festival (for both good and not so good reasons)
Yorkhill - The most talented horse on show this week?
Un de Sceaux - Un de appreciated
4 day festival - new races becoming well established and becoming harder to crib about it now

Losers:
Superstars underperforming - Altior, Douvan and Cue Card misstepped.
Yanworth - looks like they have campaigned the horse incorrectly this year.
Death Duty - Not the first hype horse to have wings clipped in the Albert Bartlett
The North - Did they have a placed horse?
Mark Walsh - sad to see him not get the chance to take advantage of Geraghty's injury
Harry Fry - Unowhatimeanharry and Neon Wolf not quite getting across the line
Paul Nicholls - He'll be back, but hype horses of this year (Politologue and Clan des Obeaux) a long way misplaced. Lean times unfortunately. Saphir du Rheu ran a cracker
Colin Tizzard - Unfortunate to miss with Finian's Oscar, thistlecrack being out, and Cue Card missing his opportunity. West Approach disappointing
Sadness involved in the sport - the deaths Toe the line, Consul de thaix, Hadrians approach (may have missed more) Some horrific falls (jer's girl), Edwulf pulling up.
Lizzie Kelly - No fault of hers but lot of attention given to a very outside chance in the gold cup
 
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Been crunching some numbers again and if they're right I ended up level over the festival on all the singles bets including hefty ante-post losses.

I need to do a trawl of the multiples I backed as those would be my nett losses so things could have been worse. One double up would have covered those losses and even Wonderful Charm yesterday would have done it too.

I'd almost have taken that before the start of the week!

But I do think I was very unlucky overall.
 
Loser: An Capall - one winner all week, Might Bite. Other than that I couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo. Even aggregated my EW stake to all win on Minella Rocco at 25s to try escape. Sums it up.
 
I'd have only ended narrowly up if I'd only done singles. Winners were hard to come by.

However some astute each way doubles struck a week before the festival meant it was a good week. In fact I almost doubled my outlay for the week.

I'll take that and run from what was a challenging punting week. Thursday especially was horrific.


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Great week for me. A shocking start on Tuesday with only one bet returning anything (Singlefarmpayment each way) but decent winners on Wednesday (Might Bite the highlight) and biggest bet of the year so far (Let's Dance) successful on Thursday. Decent bets on Penhill and Rock the World rounded the week off well and it ended up the most successful in 10 years


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The handicaps were yet again my best source of returns. There is just so much value in them.

Pleased to have found the winners of the Ultima, County and Grand Annual.

Might Bite gave me a scare, Top Notch was unlucky and Wonderful Charm was ridiculously unlucky. I'd like to know at what point Edwulf started to go wrong. If it was some way before he was pulled up he might have been unlucky but if Tiger Roll ends up with a higher figure than I had for Edwulf I'll accept there was nothing to be done.

I also think Fox Norton should have beaten Special Tiara but Douvan might have beaten both.

I think in future I'll leave the Fred Winter and bumper alone.

I do think Squouateur would have won but no doubt he'll be back well plotted up.
 
Small profit Tuesday. Great day Weds, 4 winners @ 14/1 16/1 4/1 and 15/2.(was the right side in the photo finishes).
Thursday and Friday were pretty much wipe outs but had enough in hand after Wednesday to show a profit over the week.
 
A good week including profiting for some good info on here. Always a case of what might have been, had all the following horses finish runner up when I had them in doubles and trebles etc. with double digit priced winners:

My Tent Or Yours
Gold Present
Taquin De Seuil
Debuchet
Barney Dwan
Sub Lieutenant
Pendra
Monalee.

Some looked more likely to win than others and in one or two cases I had the winner backed as well. Finally hit 2 good ins in a double on Friday with Artic Fire and Rock The World, the week has though cost me my B365 account, an unfortunate side effect.
 
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Last year vaniteux cost me an absolute bundle in each way multiples.

This year Charbel stepped into the breach. Had him in a good few ew doubles with special tiara!!!

Up on the week but a serious case of what might have been.

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Respectable profit on the week.
The ones that got away -told the brother the week before trials day at Cheltenham that Mr Potts has a dream and 66/1 Sizing John non runner no bet was absolutely value but through sheer laziness I didn't do the bet.
I'm a great believer in stables hitting absolute peak form at the festival and on Wednesday morning I contemplated a lucky 15 on Supasundae ,Someday,Sizing John and Rock The World.Unfortunately I was completely obsessed with place laying Neon Wolf.
As I said to a friend this morning-**** happens-on the bright side if I had got involved on Thursday-I could have gone on tilt.
 
littlelad said:
Last year vaniteux cost me an absolute bundle in each way multiples.

This year Charbel stepped into the breach. Had him in a good few ew doubles with special tiara!!!

Up on the week but a serious case of what might have been.

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Click to expand...

I forgot about Charbel and had similar multiples including Special Tiara too, should probably add him to the list as a moral second placer and perhaps one of the more expensive losers of the week as results turned out, even if it didn't seem so at the time.
 
Just 2 winners sums it up - Cause of Causes & Feyonegh on Weds, good profitable day.

However not one multiple and losses on big singles in particular sickeners on Wonderful Charm, SingleFarmPayment, luckless on Consul de Thaix and Marinero and pitiful excuse for a run on Battleford.

Deserted Mullins/Ruby on Thursday in favour of momentum Elliot runners - EOD in favour of UDS hurt most.

Those singles and that thursday Caused me to lose my whole outlay for the festival.
 
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16/1 Might Bite was set to make it a profitable week even if I didn't have another winner but a handful of free £25 bets on Altior at 4s last autumn contributed, as did my biggest bet of the week on Yorkhill.

Buveur returned a nice sum but the second biggest return was a bit of a fluke. I was waiting for the prices advertised in the RP overnight to become available about Singlefarmpayment but when they didn't and I realised I'd missed the price I switched allegiance to the horse I'd backed in the race last year; Un Temps Pour Tout. 16/1 was a great winner on day one.

Friday was a disaster. I'd had a sneaky £50 on Defi Du Seuil a few weeks back but for some reason I'll never know I got caught up in the hype around Henderson's comments re Charli Parcs so lost a lot more on the race than DDS returned.

Wonderful Charm brought tears to my eyes and Un De Sceaux was one of those "why didn't I back it ?" monents.

Considerably beating the SP on Le Prezien proved no help.

So overall, decent profit based on 5 winners and a few places but a real feeling of anti climax after the Friday.

And from a non betting perspective I just had a general feeling that it wasn't as good a festival as the past few years.
 
Yeah I'd seen you put them up Slim encouraged me to up the stakes cheers.

Quietly said to myself on Thursday morning, conserve what you have and remember Thursdays is a favourites day - just didn't f***** listen
 
Aftertiming but my system continued to show well - haven't had a losing Cheltenham since I switched to it - trebled my money this year, with Flying Tigers, Domesday Book and Arctic Fire being my biggest winners by far.

The "system" is not for all as it involves dutching extremely large numbers of horses! C'mon the field!
 
wilsonl said:
I was waiting for the prices advertised in the RP overnight to become available about Singlefarmpayment but when they didn't and I realised I'd missed the price I switched allegiance to the horse I'd backed in the race last year; Un Temps Pour Tout. 16/1 was a great winner on day one
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Unreal, was making exactly the same call, only 2 horses in it for me too - but plumped to stick with SFP as I thought lightning wouldn't strike twice
 
Absolutely shocking week for me.

Had Un De Sceaux at nice prices in a few acca's which got blown away by Douvan, then got caught up by ground issues for UDS and ditched him for Empire of Dirt. Ouch.

Another to get suckled into the Charli Parcs hype. Ouch.

Slim's Fayonagh tip and a little on Apple's Jade stopped it from being an absolute car crash. Managed to miss the fancy prices on Cause of Causes too.
 
Cause of Causes was like a kick in the bollox. He was my biggest bet of last year and I'd also backed him when he won the four miler.

Added him to my ante post competition portfolio ages ago at 20/1 but didn't have any cash on and then avoided him when his price contracted. To make matters worse I did have ante post bets in the race, flagged up in the "Where's the value" thread. Bless The Wings at 16s but win only for some stupid reason and then he comes second to Cause of Causes ��
 
Opposite for me. I went into the week mega confident - had very nice positions on Yanworth, Singlefarmpayment, Alpha Des Obeaux, Sub Lieutenant and Djakadam.So I felt I only needed one of those to go in to be in good shape. The fact that none of them won and I ended up with a healthy profit has me reflecting that I need to curb the ante-posts. I've always feltthe races are so competitive you have to have that price edge to show a profit. However with the dilution of the Festival that doesn't seem to be the case anymore and so day of race marketslook workable nowadays. Saying that though the main reason I ended up in profit was my loyalty to the Nick Williams stable.
 
My best ever festival and ironically enough the only time I have felt underwhelmed going in.

Having supreme winner always helps, his price a Brucey bonus.

Got the bumper winner at a lovely price thanks to the wolf of Wall Street on here.

Had Sizing John at a big price too from early days.

Reckon the first two in the supreme were good, Neptune form I will need convincing on. Penhill looked good to naked eye. Monalee if coming out of the race ok, will be some tool over fences.

Altior got a high rating but I was very underwhelmed. Yorkie has something about him. Could be one the never get to the bottom of. Might Bite is an absolute headbanger. I reckon he will have little to no longevity. Shrewdies here have nice KG prices.

vautour was the X factor but fizzled out badly.

Sizing John exceeded my expectations. He travelled like a Rolls Royce. Class act.

Excellent posting and tipping here all week.

Long live the forum
 
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Shocking aftertiming but the Midlands National today recovered 70% of my festival losses - 4 EWs all hitting the frame.

Feel a bit better about my judgement now, felt shattered and sick yesterday
 
Had a so-so week. Started off ok on Tues with place money for Ordinary World and Arpege D'Alene and win on Apples Jade.

Weds best day with Willougby Court, Bless the Wings ew and then the miracle of backing the 1-2-3 in The Bumper all each way, though for small stakes (little short of a complete fluke, tbh).

Then Thurs, day I was there, not a sniff.

Friday just an ew on Minella Rocco.

Tues and Weds paid for an expensive Thurs, and Friday I bet little, so overall not far off even.

Loved every minute


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granger said:
My best ever festival and ironically enough the only time I have felt underwhelmed going in.

Having supreme winner always helps, his price a Brucey bonus.

Got the bumper winner at a lovely price thanks to the wolf of Wall Street on here.

Had Sizing John at a big price too from early days.

Reckon the first two in the supreme were good, Neptune form I will need convincing on. Penhill looked good to naked eye. Monalee if coming out of the race ok, will be some tool over fences.

Altior got a high rating but I was very underwhelmed. Yorkie has something about him. Could be one the never get to the bottom of. Might Bite is an absolute headbanger. I reckon he will have little to no longevity. Shrewdies here have nice KG prices.

vautour was the X factor but fizzled out badly.

Sizing John exceeded my expectations. He travelled like a Rolls Royce. Class act.

Excellent posting and tipping here all week.

Long live the forum
Click to expand...

good words
 
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