Edward Gillespie defends uncompetitive Cheltenham Festival opening day

• Three odds-on shots feature on the first card of the week
• RSPCA have meeting with BHA on new whip rules

Greg Wood guardian.co.uk,

Edward Gillespie, the managing director of Cheltenham racecourse, said on Wednesday that the first afternoon of the track's Festival meeting next Tuesday will offer "great value" to punters, even though three of the seven races are likely to have odds-on favourites.

The two feature events on Tuesday's card, the Champion Hurdle and the Arkle Trophy, will also have relatively small fields after only 12 and 10 horses respectively were confirmed for the Grade One events at the six-day stage. Hurricane Fly, the defending champion hurdler, and Sprinter Sacre, the hot favourite for the Arkle, were both top-priced at 10-11 with bookmakers on Wednesday evening.

Despite their cramped odds, however, Gilliespie believes that offers around even-money about Sprinter Sacre in particular are a sign that the competitive edge to Cheltenham's racing is as sharp as ever.

"It feels as though there are more short-priced favourites than usual this year," Gillespie said, "though it may well be that someone will come up with the statistics to prove me wrong. But I saw the price about Sprinter Sacre yesterday and I thought that it is such great value. Anywhere else, he'd be going off at 3-1 on. So these favourites may be odds-on, but if so, there's value in the odds-on.

"It's beyond our scope to have every race with an average of 18 runners and the favourite going off at 5-1, but people have been around long enough to know that there's no such thing as a certainty at Cheltenham. Knowing that the bookmakers will probably come out on top after four days, we'd love them to lend some money to our punters for the first couple. Let's play with their money for a bit, then everyone can have a nice night out and bring it back the following day – there's nothing wrong with that."

The third horse on Tuesday's card expected to start at odds-on is Quevega, who will be going for a fourth consecutive victory in the Mares Hurdle after wins at 2-1, 6-4 and 5-6 over the last three seasons.

"The fate of these three runners will set the tone for the entire week," David Stevens, of Coral bookmakers, said . "If they all win punters will be on the front foot and looking to inflict further pain on the layers with the likes of Sizing Europe [in the Queen Mother Champion Chase] and Big Buck's [in the World Hurdle]. However, if the first day treble is scuppered, we will fancy taking on the other supposed good things later in the week."

David Muir, the chief equine consultant to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, met senior officials from the British Horseracing Authority, including Paul Bittar, its chief executive, at Fontwell Park to discuss the latest revisions to the BHA's rules on the controversial new whip rules.

"It was a very convivial meeting," Muir said afterwards, "with Jamie Steir [the BHA's director of regulation], Tim Morris [director of equine science and welfare] and of course Paul Bittar, and also Gavin Grant, our new chief executive.

"We wanted to make it clear that [the RSPCA] want this to work, that we are never proscriptive and will always be pragmatic. There is now a lot of trust being placed in the jockeys, and I've got every confidence that the stewards will do their job, so let's just hope that we can put this whole thing to bed.

"We've always said, let's see what the result is and then we'll make a comment, rather than saying: 'This will never work.' We've never worked like that with racing, and we are certainly not the enemy of racing."

Grumeti, the ante-post favourite for the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham, is making good progress after being found to be slightly lame on Tuesday morning, according to Alan King, the four-year-old's trainer. "Things are looking positive," he added. "He is going the right away and we will keep everybody posted. The soreness is coming out, which has to be a good sign."