Best Bets for Cheltenham Trials Day

With the Cheltenham Festival now less than two months away, punters up and down the land are looking for clues as they finalise those Ante-Post bets for the biggest and best event of the jumps season. With that in mind, all eyes will be on Cheltenham racecourse this coming weekend, as the track plays host to Festival Trials Day.

We have no fewer than nine contests on offer from the Prestbury Park venue, with live contenders for the Champion Hurdle, Stayers Hurdle, and Cheltenham Gold Cup all on display. Here we pick out our three best bets on what looks a cracking day of action.

1:50 Paddy Power Cheltenham Countdown Podcast Handicap Chase

This big field handicap looks a tricky affair at first glance, but we do have a couple of useful trends to help whittle down the list of runners. Firstly, eight of the past nine winners were aged 8 or younger, and secondly, all bar one of the winners over this period have been priced at 9/1 or under on the day. Zeroing in on well-fancied younger contenders this year creates a shortlist of just three; Your Darling, Il Ridoto, and Fugitif. Of that trio, it is the Richard Hobson runner Fugitif who makes the most appeal. An impressive winner last time out in a soft ground event at Chepstow, his previous close second to Amarillo Sky at this track also reads well, with that runner set to line up in the Grade 1 event earlier on the card.

• Best Bet - Fugitif to win @ 9/2 with Betfred

3:00 Dahlbury Stallions At Chapel Stud Cleeve Hurdle

The Andrew Gemmell-owned Paisley Park remains one of the most popular stayers in training and looks to have an ideal opportunity to delight his many fans here. The winner of this race in 2019, 2020, and 2022, he may be eleven years old now but looked as well as ever when pulling clear in the Long Walk Hurdle at Kempton last time out. He does get a 6lb penalty for that effort, but even taking that into account he is still 4lbs and more clear of his rivals here. No doubt he will make backers sweat as ever with his usual late, late, surge, but there is unlikely to be anything coming up the hill better and he looks a solid favourite.

• Best Bet - Paisley Park to win @ 5/4 with Betfred

3:35 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle

Sticking with the yard of Dan Skelton has been a solid strategy of late, with the trainer operating at a highly impressive 43% strike rate over the last fortnight. Those stats may well be boosted further in the last of the day’s live ITV races, as his six-year-old Pembroke looks to boast rock-solid claims. Losing all chance with a juddering error on hurdles debut, he has since rebounded in some style, slamming the field in a heavy ground event at Wetherby, before showing his versatility when winning by 16 lengths on good to soft at Ludlow. That latter win was particularly impressive as, despite being only a Class 4 contest, the time was excellent, and the third has since gone on to post a win of his own. This demands more, but we suspect he may be up to the task.

• Best Bet - Pembroke to win @ 5/2 with Betfred

A £1 Patent on the above three selections at the quoted prices returns £94.06