Gordon Elliott’s six-year-old had been prominent in the betting for both the RSA and JLT
Ante-post punters suffered a second major blow in the space of a couple of hours on Monday afternoon after it was announced Festival fancy Death Duty will miss the rest of the season due to injury. The Gigginstown six-year-old had been as short as 10/1 for the RSA Chase at the Festival and had attracted 9.4% of all ante-post bets on the race.
It was a similar story in the JLT Chase where he had been as short as 6/1 joint-favourite before Monday’s news broke after attracting 15% of all bets on the race.
The Death Duty announcement followed fast on the hooves of the news that Gold Cup contender Thistlecrack would also miss the Prestbury Park showpiece after also being ruled out for the season with a small stress fracture.
Oddschecker spokesperson George Elek: “They say bad news comes in threes so racing fans will be watching their Twitter feeds from behind the sofa after Monday saw both Thistlecrack and Death Duty ruled out of Cheltenham. Death Duty has long been regarded as one of Gordon Elliott’s star horses and he had been almost foot-perfect over fences until falling last time out at Leopardstown. Despite that blip, many still believed he was more than capable of bouncing back and playing a starring role in any of the Novice Chases in March with the horse in the top 30 most popular ante-post bets through Oddschecker.”
