Cheltenham December Betting

About the Cheltenham Racecourse – Boylesports International

Most famously known for holding the Cheltenham Festival or 'Olympics of Racing' each year in mid-March, hotels in Cheltenham get fully booked as over 50,000 racegoers descend on the town each of the four days to witness top class jumping action where, millions of pounds of bets are won and lost.

However just before Christmas the track hosts its Boylesports International Meeting each year at the start of December. For many it's a chance to get a feel for the main March festival with good quality racing and excellent surroundings.

Boylesports continue their sponsorship of the two days with just under £700,000 on offer over the meeting. As always many potential festival contenders will turn out to run over the tough Prestbury Park course with the Ante post markets for next March sure to have plenty of activity.

Day One – Friday

The main events on the opening day are the Boylepoker.com Chase (now worth over £100,000) and the unique Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase. Formerly known as the Mears Group Handicap Chase the Boylepoker.com Chase is run over 3m 1½f and continues to be one of the most valuable chase races of the season.

In recent year's trainer Nicky Henderson and jockey Tony McCoy have been the most successful winning the race twice each, while all eyes will be on David Pipe to see if he can repeat last year's win in the race.

Another strong tip to note here is that the market leaders have a fair record in the last decade, while there have only ever been two Irish trained winners of the race and the best age group to look for are 7 and 8 year-olds. Last year Over The Creek, for trainer David Pipe, won the race under jockey Christian Williams with Simon, who looks set to run again, in second.

Day Two – Saturday

The second day sees the Boylesports.com International as the feature race of the meeting (now worth an incredible £200,000), making the race the second most valuable hurdle event in both Britain and Ireland, behind the Champion Hurdle. Run over 2m 1f the race was formerly known as the Bula Hurdle and always attracts the best hurdlers in training. Plus the sponsors have added £200,000 if the winner goes on to win the Champion Hurdle in the same season, but only six horses have completed the double with the popular grey Rooster Booster being the last in 2002-2003.

Be sure to have the jolly on your side as they have landed this race 17 times in the last 40 runnings, while jockey Richard Johnson is also worth noting as he's won the contest four times in the last 10 years.

Twelve months ago David Pipe's Osana took the race ahead of Katchit – though later that season Alan King’s Katchit reversed that form to go on and land the Champion Hurdle at the Festival in March.

The other main race on the Saturday is the Boylesports.com Gold Cup. First run in 1963 the race has been formerly called the Tripleprint Gold Cup and more recently, last year, the Robin Cook Memorial Gold Cup.

Run over 2m 5f the race is worth £150,000.

Keep a close eye on past winners as you can probably rule any out that line up again, as no horse has won more than one Boylesports.com Gold Cup in recent runnings.

In the last nine runnings (abandoned in 2001) the market leader has only won the race once, but a fancied horse does tend to win with most returning at 9/1 or less.

Ireland have taken the race twice in the last ten years, including in 2005 with Sir Oj and jockey Paul Carberry, while all of the last nine runnings have been won by 6, 7 or 8 year-olds, including the then 6-year-old Tamarinbleu 12 months ago, again for trainer David Pipe, who capped an excellent meeting - winning all three of the main races.