Betting.Betfair

[b]After a period of panic, Kauto Star has been cleared to challenge for a third Gold Cup. The Betfair Contrarian is confident that the 12-year-old Cheltenham Festival legend will delight all those excitedly waving his trademark green, gold and purple scarves on Friday...[/b] [u]The holder rarely retains[/u] This year's favourite Long Run established himself as the latest elite chaser by beating Denman and Kauto Star to the Gold Cup last March, however his progress has surprisingly stalled since, with just one victory in three outings and that an unconvincing success by half-a-length in a Grade 2 race. Also counting against the market leader is that even the mighty Kauto Star and Denman never managed to finish first two years in a row, with the dominant Best Mate (2002, 2003 and 2004)...

Some punters remain wedded to the idea that you should back or lay a horse and take whatever comes once the tapes go up. But a growing number of Betfair users now use the flexibility of the exchange to back and lay horses with a view to saving their stake or better once the In-Play action begins. The "keep bets" facility is the ideal device for those like me who don't feel inclined to take on those with the edge of fast pictures and the following points might be worth noting as regards Friday's Cheltenham card. [b]1:[/b] Garde Champetre might well trade at longer than his Betfair SP in the cross country chase at 14:20. After all, he needs to negotiate 32 fences during more than eight minutes of bewildering action and his hold-up style gives layers every chance to push him out if...

[b]Ruby Walsh has described him as his best ride of the week and thousands of punters will simply lump on and expect an 11th win in succession. But Big Buck's is unlikely to toy with this year's World Hurdle rivals in the way he has dismissed overmatched rivals so far this season. Grands Crus looks a stern rival to the champ as he bids to win Cheltenham's day three showpiece for a third year running and RUK analyst Graham Cunningham expects a classic showdown as he continues his Festival Foursome feature.[/b] 1: Loosen My Load has had very little publicity in the run up to the Jewson Chase at 13:30, but he's struck me as the ideal type for this for quite a while now. In the words of trainer Henry de Bromhead he's "a savage jumper" and he's also a proven Cheltenham performer who relishes...

[b]It could be the old champ, it could be the reigning champ, or it could be any one of the potential heirs to the throne. It's Master Minded versus Big Zeb and co. in the Queen Mother Champion Chase on Wednesday at Cheltenham. RUK analyst Graham Cunningham has his eye on the ones to be with and those to oppose on day two of his Festival Foursome feature[/b]. 1: Paul Nicholls feels Master Minded is one of his bets of the week in the Champion Chase at 15:20, but I can't forget the way Big Zeb powered clear of him in this race last year and the stage looks set for a repeat performance. Forgive the fact that Colm Murphy's gelding was mugged late by Golden Silver at Punchestown last time. Barry Geraghty clearly went for home too soon on testing ground that day, but drying conditions are...

The Champion Bumper has historically been a fairly easy race for bettors to approach. Find an Irish runner aged five or six, preferably trained by Willie Mullins, who has proven stamina, has won his last race and hope that you've picked the right one. Willie, bless him, has tried to make this puzzle more difficult by trying to saddle the entire field for the last few seasons. If that move made life hard for punters, then last year's race must have bamboozled them entirely. Cue Card - wrong age, wrong nationality, wrong trainer, wrong jockey, wrong trip, hell's teeth, he might as well have been the wrong colour - it seems the only way of finding the winner of the bumper these days is to actually watch the horses run! The Irish challenge in this race used to be formidable, and while...

[b]On paper there's no reason not to back Time For Rupert at odds of 3.4 for the RSA Chase - but that was the same story as Dunguib in the Supreme Novices' in 2010 - so are you a backer or a layer?[/b] A friend of mine who works in the city tells me that successive prime ministers have very actively encouraged the capitalist tendencies of his kind. I tell him taxpayers have already bailed out one major firm and are now paying again through swingeing cuts in the public sector. Where I come from, banker is a rude word. But in the lexicon of the Cheltenham festival, banker is what punters dream of, search for and ultimately perhaps, rely on. Time For Rupert is this year's banker. In the 90s Istabraq carried the hopes and wealth of a nation on his athletic shoulders for several years ...

A rather confusing year for the juvenile division has made the Triumph Hurdle betting akin to a session of musical chairs in terms of the betting market, but with the final serious trial on Saturday, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge. Those twin leviathans of the jumping scene, Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson have particularly strong hands, but is there anyone who can wrest the prize away? Let's look at the Ditcheat team first - Sam Winner routed Grandouet on the Old Course in November, albeit in receipt of 8 lbs, and has been favourite for much of the season, but he's drifted to 12.0 in face of support for Zarkandar and may yet be re-routed to the Supreme if that offers the best prospect of give underfoot. Zarkandar is very much the new kid on the block having made his UK...

In March 2007, the month Kauto Star was sprinting away from a crowded pack to land the first of his two Cheltenham Gold Cups, the BBC released a DVD of luminaries such as Bill Oddie and Lesley Garrett discovering their past during the hit series Who do you think you are? In recent months racing fans have been concerned less with previous and more with the present in regard to this year's Gold Cup contenders. The question of them is; 'Who are you now?" At 11-years-old both Kauto Star and Denman appear in the dusk of sparkling careers but do the former Champs have one last great fight in them? Denman's monumental weight-carrying third place in the Hennessy has him solid in the market though not apparently convincing at 7.8. The 2008 Gold Cup winner has been on one hell of a Bill & Ted...

[b]Dan Fitch looks at the horses that defied the odds to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.[/b] As the most prestigious event of the National Hunt calendar, the Cheltenham Gold Cup is the Grade 1 race that can make or break the reputation of a horse. With the race contested by the very top horses around, it is no wonder that it is most often won by one of the favourites. Occasionally though, an unfancied entrant has upset the odds to win the race. Here are five rank outsiders who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup. [i]5. Cool Ground - 1992 Gold Cup Winner - 25/1[/i] Carvill's Hill was expected to win the 1992 Gold Cup at Cheltenham, but was overtaken in the final moments of the race, as Cool Ground won the race by a short-head, with The Fellow just beaten into second and Docklands Express...