'We keep plunging on the wrong ones' - the odds-on disasters at Cheltenham

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In Monday's email Chris reflects on how have odds-on shots fared at the festival – and subscribers can get more great insight, tips and racing chat from Chris every Monday to Friday.

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There were quite a few interesting responses to Friday's Front Runner, some of them in the Letters section below, with a common theme being: "Please tell us what happened to all those odds-on shots at recent Cheltenham Festivals".

I didn't do that on Friday because it wasn't central to my point that a lot of these races are less thrilling in anticipation than they used to be, but let's do it now in case there might be something worth learning before we repeat old mistakes next week.

I researched the fate of all odds-on shots at the festival since 2004. In the study I did last week, that was the earliest year which had multiple odds-on favourites; the previous 15 festivals had either none or just one. Odds-on shots are now coming at an increasing rate, currently five per year on average.

Since 2004, whether they win or lose is very nearly a coin flip. There have been 27 winners and 26 losers, a 51 per cent strike-rate for a net loss of 18 per cent of stakes. Surely no one will be surprised that taking SP about the very shortest festival favourites is a bad betting strategy.

In case anyone is minded to string together the shorties in an acca, this has also proved a blind alley for the most part. There have been 13 festivals since 2004 with multiple odds-on shots; at least one of them has managed to get beat at 11 of those festivals.

The two exceptions were 2011, when Quevega and Big Buck's both did the business, and 2013, when the three good things all came home in front: Simonsig, Quevega and Sprinter Sacre.

Things have gone rather badly at the last couple of festivals, with three winners out of seven last year and just one from six the year before. This is certainly a point in favour of those who contend that, although we're sending off more horses at odds-on, it's still not easy to identify festival winners.

Think of all that accumulated learning from past Cheltenhams, the ready access to form, statistics and video replays, the reams of handicapping software, the endless preview nights. And yet we keep plunging on the wrong gee-gees. Somewhere up in the mists, the Racing Gods do a collective facepalm as they remember us making Chacun Pour Soi 8-13 for the Champion Chase...

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's mean to pick on a single example which is bound to be a painful trigger for some. And of course there was a perfectly good case to be made for every one of these horses. It just didn't work out on the day.

But for punters like me, who hardly ever get involved at odds-on, that's really the point. Stuff happens, so you need a margin for error in the odds you take.

Damon Runyon wrote an enthralling story called All Horse Players Die Broke, in which a punter stakes his entire bank on a 1-6 shot to finish in the first three in a four-horse Flat race. Runyon's narrator approves of the bet because: "There is really nothing that can make Cara Mia run out of the money, the way I look at it, except what happens to her..."

It would have come as no surprise to Runyon when Envoi Allen lost an argument with the fourth fence. "You guys made him 4-9, did ya? In a novice chase? I guess it's your money. Was your money."

Would Runyon have dared write about two odds-on shots carrying the same colours, crashing out at the final hurdle of the same race, just four years apart? That's the story of Annie Power and Benie Des Dieux, in case any of you missed it.

How can you tell those punters that they made a mistake? Annie Power only fell once in her life. Benie Des Dieux only fell once in her life. They were very obviously the best horses in those races and yet all those stakes were raked in.

God is a bookie. How else to explain a horse like Benie Des Dieux, whose only win in the Mares Hurdle came at 9-2 as she foiled those who made Apple's Jade the 1-2 favourite? When they tried to get it back on Benie the next year, she fell. The year after that, she was even shorter at 4-6 but it turned out she was trying to beat Honeysuckle.

In the eyes of Cheltenham punters, there ain't nothing like a mare, nothing in the world. The Mares Hurdle favourite has been odds-on an amazing nine times in the past ten years and what makes it amazing is the last of them to win was Vroum Vroum Mag in 2016.

The Queen Mother Champion Chase is another race where we tend to get, as Runyon would say, a little daffy over some horse. There have been seven odds-on favourites in the last ten years and five of them have somehow wriggled out of winning.

Honeyscukle is a huge favourite to win the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham FestivalCredit: Patrick McCann

Again, no blame. It probably wasn't very wise to make Un De Sceaux 4-6 to beat Sprinter Sacre that time but I'm speaking with the full benefit of hindsight. The next year came Douvan. There was really nothing that could make him run out of the money, except what happened to him, which was a fractured pelvis.

The race we're really good at is the Arkle: seven odds-on favourites from the last ten years, all winners. If the jolly isn't odds-on, like this year, look out! You might get a Western Warhorse (33-1) or a Put The Kettle On (16-1).

As I scan the list of beaten hotpots, one common theme suggesting itself is that we tend to get a bit over-excited about horses that won at the previous festival. This is perfectly natural because if there is one lesson that features in every single list of punting dos and don'ts, it's Look Out For Repeat Winners At Cheltenham. Many of them do indeed go in again but it's not like we've been handed the keys to the vault.

Anyway, that could explain some of the shortness of Envoi Allen and Concertista last year, Defi Du Seuil, Tiger Roll and Paisley Park the year before, Apple's Jade and Un De Sceaux in 2018, Douvan and Unowhatimeanharry 12 months earlier.

Does that help? Honeysuckle, Shishkin and Allaho are all odds-on for next week, having won at last year's festival. History suggests they won't all make it to the winner's enclosure, though the reason for any defeat may be hard to anticipate.

I maintain that the presence of several hot favourites at a single festival is a sign we have failed to sustain competition levels. But this little canter through the recent past shows tension and drama have remained very high indeed. Have we been lucky or is it just what happens when you stage racing at Prestbury Park in mid-March?

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The Front Runner is our latest email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, a four-time Racing Reporter of the Year award winner, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday