Next week sees jump racing fans from both sides of the Irish Sea descend in their droves upon Prestbury Park on the outskirts of Cheltenham for the 2022 Cheltenham Festival. How the world has changed in those two years since tens of thousands of people spent four days in close proximity to one another at the races before the Government locked down the nation the following week!
The importance of Cheltenham to bookmakers’ coffers and annual budgets cannot be underestimated. Should the Irish be given a bloody nose by their English, Scottish and Welsh counterparts, bookmakers everywhere will be dancing for joy!
Given the volume of multiple and accumulator bets already bet on the Irish hot-pots (with many more to come), should they all land the spoils, we can expect the PR spokesmen and spokeswomen for the bookmakers to be ruing losses running into the many millions, or even tens of millions.
In terms of bet volumes for last year, unsurprisingly, the Grand National topped the rankings for most bet, whilst the Investec Derby crept into the Top 10 in last place. Races two through nine all took place at the Cheltenham Festival. The industry is anticipating fresh all-time records in terms of number of bets and volumes. It will be fascinating to see who has come out on top by the time the dust settles at 5.45pm on Friday 18th March and the last winner has been cheered across the line!
Will the Irish reign over their favourite patch of Gloucestershire? Will punters for once have the upper hand on the bookmakers and leave their CEOs explaining away "adverse results" to their shareholders for impacting their revenues?!
We shall see...
For what it’s worth, my banker of the week is Vauban in the first race on Friday, 275,000 pints of Guinness will be drunk over the week and Non-Irish trained horses will only win seven races of the 28 over the week, leading to a record volume of “Liffey Water” being consumed…
Enjoy the spectacle and attend if you can!
