With less than a week before the roar of the crowd on the first day of Cheltenham, instead of assessing the chances of runners in individual races, we decided to adopt a similar approach to that taken way back in 2014 to identify a few trainers that punters should keep a careful eye on when assessing the merits of their entries at the festival.

 

Methodology  

Given their myriad of ways we could have cut the data, we took the decision to look at the top Cheltenham Festival trainers from the last 5 years and order their results by number of winners.

Using the information above to formulate our list for analysis via the Proform System Builder, we reviewed the individual records of each trainer in the last 3 months.

This approach gives us a fair sample size covering a significant period of time where each trainer had the opportunity to run horses with festival aspirations (and their lesser lights) either in a key Cheltenham trial, prep or bread or butter race.

The table is ordered by Actual Verses Expected (A/E) which simply put, provides a good indication of whether a statistic is good (above one) or bad (below one).

Here is our assessment of the notable stables.

 

Cause for Concern

The JONJO O'NEILL stable is going through a really bad run of form at the moment

With only 9 winners from 131 runners in the last 3 months, a Chi score of 3.27 (last column) indicates that there is less than an 8% chance the statistic was down to pure luck suggesting that some factor is causing his horses to underperform.

Last year JONJO O'NEILL was 0 /16 at the festival, and searching the web for any anecdotal evidence for this year, I couldn’t find any reported issues with the yard or any snippets of news regarding viruses or issues that were public knowledge.

If the statistics are anything to go by, unless there is a dramatic turnaround, there has to be some doubt about the form of the Jonjo runners at the festival.

 

Monitor

The form of the PAUL NICHOLLS yard came under scrutiny around December last year with well-publicised reporting regarding the lack of winners during the busy Christmas holiday period.

An A/E figure of 0.87 indicates that his runners are currently performing 13% below expectations in the last 3 months and with a large number of horses declared and a proven rock solid record for getting horses ready, PAUL NICHOLLS is not a trainer to dismiss lightly based on a bunch of numbers.

In our opinion a stable to monitor on a runner-by-runner basis during the festival.

 

Bouncebackability

In our “Profiling Cheltenham” Webinar” we demonstrated how you can use Proform to research trends for Cheltenham.

At the festival last year, trainers PHILLIP HOBBS were 0/15, NIGEL TWISTON-DAVIES 0/9, COLIN TIZZARD 0/7 and HARRY FRY 0/7.

Based on the performance of their runners in the 3 months leading up to this year’s event, all of the afore mentioned stables about are in a good run of form with the PHILLIP HOBBS yard yielding a profit of £71.98 to a £1 stake at Befair Starting Prices (48.64% ROI).

 

Dark Trainer

ALAN KING saddled one festival winner in 2015.

In the last 3 month his horses are performing 16% above normal with notable Grade 2 and Grade 3 successes during this period.

If he can maintain this performance next week, he is one trainer to keep on your side during Cheltenham.

 

The Obvious

It does not take a super computer to determine that WILLIE MULLINS has the key to a number of championship races at this year’s festival.

Given the profile of the stable and therefore a tendency to be over bet by loyal followers, their faith has be rewarded with a profit of £34.48 to a £1 stake at Betfair Starting Prices (40.54% ROI) in the last 3 months.

With record prize-money at the Cheltenham Festival this can only mean one thing -  WILLIE MULLINS is more likely to win his first British trainers’ title and there will be plenty of festival winners on the road to that illustrious prize.