Cheltenham Betting – Cup Tip is More Than Wishfull Thinking

It was honours even between England and Ireland after day one of the Cheltenham Festival, though the Irish would have been despondent after Dunguib‘s defeat in the opener and they would also have hoped for a better showing from their leading hopes in the Champion Hurdle. In the end Binocular, who wasn’t even going to run up to a few weeks ago, strode to a convincing success under Tony McCoy and is a general 4-1 to repeat his success in 2011. The feature on the second day is the Seasons Holidays Queen Mother Champion Chase in which Master Minded, bidding for a hat-trick in the race, is a hot favourite. Paul Nicholls‘ chaser, 10-11 with bet365, totesport and Victor Chandler, hasn’t impressed everyone this season, however, suffering a surprise defeat by Well Chief over C&D in November and not jumping with any degree of fluency despite reversing that form with Mahogany Blaze at Newbury last month. There are far stronger odds-on chances running at the meeting this week and I’d be comfortable taking on Master Minded. Stablemate Twist Magic, 15-2 with Paddy Power and Stan James, has won two Grade One events this winter and is in much better form then when falling in this 12 months ago, while I wouldn’t rule out Forpadyplasterer (a general 10-1) or Kalahari King (widely available at 9-2). The pair were first and second in the Arkle Chase last season and both seem to have been trained with this race in mind. Diamond Harry (7-1 with Ladbrokes) is still a work in progress but more than capable of making a race with it with strongly-fancied Nicky Henderson pair Long Run and Punchestowns (a general 2-1 and 11-4 respectively) in the RSA Chase. Mobaasher (a general 12-1) is an interesting runner in the National Hunt Challenge Cup Chase but the day’s value bet could be in the Coral Cup. Wishfull Thinking has only had three runs over hurdles but has won them all and, though this is his biggest test to date, his latest win at Exeter has already been franked and promising conditional rider Giles Hawkins takes a valuable 5lbs off his back here. I like the look of Ladbrokes‘ 16-1, though a big danger will be Deutschland who has been well backed and is now as short as 8-1 in most places.