Should You Go Odds On At The Cheltenham Festival

Betting at odds-on always seems an emotive subject, there are some punters who refuse to go below the even money threshold whereas other view it as a licence to print money. With that in mind let's look at the profitability of backing horses who were odds on in the Cheltenham betting prices during the past ten meetings.

In that period there have been 12 odds-on chances at the Festival of which a third have won, giving the odds-on backers a 33% strike-rate. That alone however is not enough to have given the odds-on backers a profit as they would have lost £5.54 to a level stake. Unsurprisingly all of these short prices occurred in non-handicaps with three races providing 75% of the odds-on shots at Cheltenham, the Gold Cup, World or Stayers Hurdle and the Queen Mother Champion Chase. However none of those races has provided by more than one winner and all of them have seen odds-on chances beaten.

The two shortest prices that have been returned in the ten year period under scrutiny have won – those are Master Minded, the winner of the 2009 Queen Mother (4/11) and the winner of the 2000 Champion Hurdle Istabraq (8/15).

Last year was saw four odds-on chances at the Festival but the only successful one was Big Buck's (5/6) in the World Hurdle – Paul Nicholls trainer of Big Buck's did suffer two odds-on reverses though with Kauto Star (4/6 – Gold Cup) and Master Minded (4/5 – QM Champion Chase). Those looking for Paul Nicholls racing tips may want to exercise a little caution when backing his horses odds on.

The scores for odds-on horses in recent years have been as follows - 2000 one from one, 2004 one from three, 2008 none from one, 2009 one from three and 2010 one from for. Those scores may think odds-on backers think again about supporting all the odds-on chances at the Cheltenham Festival one of the most competitive meetings of the year.