A volatile jumps season has left ante-post punters scratching their heads.
Ante-post betting for this year’s Cheltenham Festival has grown more slowly than last year as markets look more uncertain than ever.
Despite search traffic for the Cheltenham sections of Oddschecker being up year on year, the number of bets placed through the site on these markets have slowed.
Plenty will attribute this to a particularly unpredictable jumps season. We have seen much-talked about runners fail to live up to expectation, and big winners from last year falter in their efforts to stamp down further authority on their respective disciplines.
Last year’s Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle winner Samcro stands out as a major disappointment this season, failing to record a win in three starts, with trainer Gordon Elliott now at a loss as to where to aim his gelding next.
Meanwhile, favourite to retain his Champion Hurdle title, Buveur D’Air had his nearly immaculate record dented at Kempton on Boxing Day. During the same meeting another of Nicky Henderson’s stars, Might Bite, followed up a disastrous seasonal reappearance with a nightmare run in the King George VI Chase.
With a distinct lack of short-priced favourites across the Cheltenham ante-post markets, punters are faced with an uneasy picture at this stage. Unlikely to be served with many more opportunities for clarity this season, it seems plenty of punters are biding their time until March.
Oddschecker spokesperson George Elek: ““This year the Cheltenham ante-post picture is particularly murky as the jumps season thus far has proven extremely unpredictable.
“Aside from Altior, no favourite looks very solid and in most cases it is guesswork as to what race connections will be targeting, which naturally is going to stunt bets."
