PERTEMPS FINAL HANDICAP HURDLE INFO
Date: Thursday (13:55), March 16, 2023 – Day 3
Type: Grade 3 Handicap Hurdle Race
Distance: 3 Miles
The Pertemps Network Final Handicap Hurdle takes place on Thursday March 17th at 13:55, as the second race on the third day day of the Cheltenham Festival.
Former professional boxer who is now a content writer specializing in sports and betting. Has worked for some of the biggest names in the industry, including Coral and Betfair covering all manner of sports, from boxing and football to horse racing. A student of the formbook, he loved stats, trends, numbers and how they can guide punters towards a winner.
As a standalone race this is a Grade 3 handicap hurdle run over three miles on the New Course and featuring twelve flights of hurdles, but it is part of a series fed by eight qualifying races staged around England, Ireland and France.
The final itself will be worth £100,000 and is one of the major betting events of the whole week, giving it huge significance with punters as well as with those directly responsible for the runners of which there can be up to 24.
This is a race famous for huge gambles, some of them public and some of them created by trainers and owners who have attempted to lay their horses out for this race, with the Pertemps Final 2022 promising to be just as hot as ever.
Entries are of course not yet complete for the Pertemps Hurdle 2023 and there’s a long way to go, but with some feeder races having already been run certain bookmakers are already showing ante post prices for the event and from those, we can make some tentative early selections.
As well as not knowing who will even take part come March 16th, we don’t know what handicap rating they will have by then and therefore what weight they’ll carry relative to each other, but on the little information we have and the prices offered up, a few contenders do stand out.
Tips coming soon…
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The most successful current jockey in this race is Davy Russell with three wins, though they were achieved in successive years for two different trainers and it would be folly to assume things means anything tangible.
As for handlers, the most successful trainer is Jonjo O’Neill with four successes between 1991 and 2013 and it’s possible he could have another well handicapped sort being readied for a crack at this event.
While in such tight handicap races blindly following horses who appear to be in good current form is an easy way to the poor house, in the Pertemps Final it has been rather different in recent times.
Buena Vista, who as we’ll discover is an anomaly in terms of age as well, clearly just loved this race and if taking him and Cape Tribulation out of the equation we see that six of the last seven runners were placed before running here, last year’s winner Sire Du Berlais not having been but as favourite was obviously expected to go well anyway.
Buena Visa simply loved the conditions of this race and didn’t need to be young or even in form, but the others have all been aged 6-8 with the exception of five-year-old Delta Work. So, while there’s no clear and obvious pattern here, horses aged between six and eight do seem to be able to peak at the right time.
Only two favourites have won this in the last ten years and that is a statistic that would surprise nobody. However, the average SP of Pertemps Final winners in this decade is just 12/1 with 8 out of 10 winners going off at between 4/1 and 16/1 so we seem to have a fair idea of there the most likely winner will come from in the market.
Horses aged 6-8, probably having been placed last time and likely no higher than around 14/1 in the betting would have the ideal profile for this event.
Last year’s deals were almost too numerous to count as bookmakers attempted to push and shove their way to the front in terms of getting customers, especially new ones, to bet with them during the busiest wagering week of the year.
While we don’t yet know what Cheltenham Festival offers online firms will be handing us, taking a look at twelve months ago certainly whets the appetite a little.
Paddy Power as usual were in the vanguard with such deals, one of theirs being the £20 Risk Free Bet – Money Back in Cash if it Loses offer while 888Sport were giving enhanced odds on specific horses, something they’d be likely to do in a big betting race such as this one so keep looking out for that.
Both in terms of bookmaker offers and in nailing down much more positive selections, when the final declarations are made for this race on Tuesday March 10th, we can be a lot more accurate with our selections.
Ante post wise, Pertemps Handicap Hurdle tips are based on potential and little information but in all fairness this is reflected in bookmaker’s odds, so getting on now at prices such as 25/1 to small stakes can still prove to be very worthwhile, particularly if your bookie is offering a ‘non-runner, no bet’ deal.
A full field of 24 horses went to post for the 2019 running of the Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle and as ever it was virtual war in the betting jungle at Cheltenham.
Much was expected of horses such as Cuneo, First Assignment and Aaron Lad but it perhaps should not have been too much of a surprise to see the favourite going well considering that Sire Du Berlais was so strong in the Pertemps Hurdle betting that he’d touched as low as 7/2, eventually going off at 4/1.
Things were close in the end though, Gordon Elliott’s runner just about lasting home from 40/1 shot Tobefair by a neck to wild celebrations.