Cheltenham Open Meeting Time Analysis

Cheltenham’s Open meeting is always a big weekend in the National Hunt season with the betting public looking for Festival clues.

For comparative purposes, it is best to focus on the 2 mile hurdle races that took place. They were all run over the same course and distance and are informative for the Triumph, Supreme Novices’ and Champion Hurdle in March.

Mercifully, Turf Trax provide sectional timings for races at the Open meeting which means we can analyse each contest in greater detail.

Using the methadology espoused by Simon Rowlands of Timeform we can compare the 2m hurdle races to a theoretical par – the perfect way of running the race.

2-Mile Sectionals vs Par

Each race is broken down into sectionals, the time it takes to reach each obstacle. We then compared those times to a theoretical par for the distance. A negative % figure indicates a faster-than-usual pace (given the horse’s overall time) and a positive % indicates the opposite.

The fastest 2m hurdle race over the weekend was achieved by Dell’Arca in the Greatwood (3.15 Sunday). That is what you would expect from a more experienced horse but the event unfolded in a suboptimal manner.

The race was run at a stop-start gallop, there was a strong early pace between the first and third obstacles but this slowed mid-race before they sprinted up the hill. The overall time was only 1.21 seconds quicker than the preceding Supreme Novices’ trial.

The leaders finished in a bit of a heap and it’s unlikely there are any Champion Hurdle contenders in the field. The one to take out of the race is Rawnaq who helped set the stop-start gallop and might be seen to better effect in an evenly run contest.

On Saturday, Royal Irish Hussar put in a good performance to win the JCB Triumph Hurdle Trial. The pace was strong, with all the sectional timings quicker than par apart from the last. After the race Nicky Henderson said his horse needs ‘daylight’ in his races so expect the tactics to be employed again.

The worry is that in a bigger field the horse will be forced to go even quicker if he wants to lead and therefore the 16/1 (Ladbrokes) on a Triumph Hurdle success in March looks about right.

There was a small field in Sunday’s Supreme Novices’ Trial but Tom Scudamore made sure it was a decent test. The Liquidator controlled the race before quickening from three out. I expect he could run slightly faster given a lead in the race but he doesn’t look like a winner of the Supreme at this stage and is 14/1 with Bet365.