When the price isn't right

Here's a question for you.

There are just under five weeks until the Champion Hurdle, the day one highlight of the 2015 Cheltenham Festival. What's the betting that the price of the current ante-post favourite, Faugheen, will be bigger on the day of the race than it is trading at currently?

I'd go 4/5. That's right: 4/5. Do not adjust your set.

There's no doubt that the Willie Mullins-trained unbeaten son of Germany is a very good horse. A winner of the 2m5f Neptune at last year's Festival, Faugheen would be following in the hoofprints of that fine hurdling brace Istabraq and Hardy Eustace if he were to go on and lift Cheltenham's Grade One crown the following season.

There's every chance he'll do it, notwithstanding the fact he clattered a couple of hurdles en route to success in the novices' contest last year (a fact that many pundits who are now aboard the 'Faugheen the Machine' bandwagon appear to have forgotten subsequently).

But whether Faugheen emerges triumphant or not in March isn't the question here. The issue is to do with his price, today, on 5 Feb 2015. A quick trawl via the Oddschecker website reveals that several high street bookmaking firms are trading in the range even money to 5/4.

That strikes me as poor value 30+ days out from the race, even if you've been able to snaffle a non-runner, no bet concession into your wager as part of the transaction.

The day-of-race betting markets at the Festival have become extremely competitive in recent years with punters confronted with a flood of enhanced last-minute offers as bookmakers scramble for business and balance their books.

There has to be a fighting chance that 5/4 or bigger is available for Faugheen on the very day of the race. You certainly wouldn't catch me wading in for a punt at his current price.

£50k bonus for completing Freebets/Festival double

An online sports betting service is dangling a juicy £50k carrot in front of connections whose horse can complete a Cheltenham trials day/Festival double this spring. 

The horse who manages to win the £50,000 Grade Three 2m 5f Freebets.com handicap chase at Cheltenham's Festival trials day at the end of January will earn a further £50,000 bonus if it manages to go on and win any race at the Festival six weeks later.

The bonus would be split so that £40,000 goes to the winning horse's owners, £5,000 to the trainer and £5,000 to the yard.

Iain Coward, managing director of Freebets' parent company Biggerbet Ltd, said: "it could prove costly for us, but nonetheless we hope it adds even further to the excitement of the Festival for all concerned."

  

Festival sponsorship arrives at the double

An investment firm has teamed up with a fledgling breeding operation to sponsor one of the most fiercely competitive handicap chases at the Cheltenham Festival later this spring.

The Brown Advisory & Merriebelle Stable Plate takes place on St Patrick's Thursday 12 March 2015. Run last year as the Byrne Group Plate, this is the latest incarnation of the 2m 5f contest first staged in 1951 and known for many years as the Mildmay of Flete Handicap Chase.

The announcement pairs together independent investment firm Brown Advisory with Merriebelle Stable, a US and European equine breeding and racing operation launched in 2012. Sophia Brudenell, communications executive at Cheltenham, said the sponsorship was a one-year deal.

A maximum field of 24 will go to post for this year's race. The David-Pipe-trained Ballynagour, won the 2014 renewal, the third time the West Country trainer has been successful in the contest.