How to Pick a Winner at the 2012 Cheltenham Festival
By Damian Carvill
Whether or not you're lucky enough to attend this year's Cheltenham Festival, you can still take advantage of adding extra excitement to the races by placing a bet. Whether you're a novice punter or seasoned better, picking a winner from a field of contenders isn't easy. First there's the different odds, then there's the jockeys, the form and of course, the horse's names.
So with so much to consider, how do you pick the winning horse? By the time you've finished reading this guide, you will be better placed to identify a horse that may win you the race.
Understand the Odds
Alongside the Grand National and Ascot, the Cheltenham Gold Cup attracts a huge amount of interest and bets from fans and non-fans of horse racing. However many see the process of betting, with varying odds and different stake options, to be too complicated and daunting to pursue. Understanding the odds and how to place a bet is the first step on the road to picking a winner and netting a tidy sum of money.
Regardless of what John McCririck might suggest, sporting odds are actually quite easy to understand. The two different numbers that you will see next to a horse's name relate to how probable that horse is to win that race. The shorter the odds, or the lower the numbers, the greater its chance of winning. These numbers are separated by a slash and referred to as being one number to another, for example 10/1 or ten to one.
When a horse is favourite to win a race, or odds on, a bookmaker regards its chances of winning the race as better than 50%. This is when you see larger numbers as the second number in the horse's odds, like 1/2.
How much will I win?
So let's say you have �10 to bet, how much will that win you, should your horse come home first? Again, this is quite easy to calculate. If, when you place your �10 bet, the horse's odds are 5-1, you will win �10 X 5, plus your original stake back to make a total of �60.
If your horse is described as evens, that means the bookmaker believes your horse has a 50:50 chance of winning the race, or 1/1. So with your �10, you will win �10 X 1 plus your original �10 stake to make a total of �20.
Sometimes you may see odds that don't end in a one, like 7/2. As odds are written as fractions, they don't include numbers with a decimal point. Therefore, 7/2 is actually 3.5 to 1.
When your horse is odds on, say 1/4, your �10 bet will win, as normal, your �10 back plus 10 X 0.25 (or a quarter of the evens odds), which is �2.50. Therefore you will take away �12.50 in total.
To win or each way?
When you place your bet you have the opportunity to bet on the horse to win outright or to finish in the top three, or 'each way'. The examples given above are all based on your horse winning and you betting on it to win outright. If you decided to hedge your bet and go each way, you are actually placing two bets, one on the horse to win and another, equal sized bet, to finish second or third (and in some cases, but not at Cheltenham, fourth). Therefore, if you had �10 to bet, you would bet �5 each way, making a total of �10, spread across the two bets.
Your first bet at �5, on the horse to win, would pay out as above. Therefore on a horse backed at 5-1, you would win your stake back plus 5x5, to total �30. The second part of the bet is a little more complicated and depends on the number of horses in the race.
If there are 16 horses running, the bookmaker will pay out up until the fourth horse. If your horse finishes fourth, you will receive one quarter of the odds plus your stake back. For races with 12-15 horses, this goes up to third with third place getting one quarter of the odds too. For 8-11 runners, a bookmaker will pay out to third place with that horse receiving one fifth of the odds. When there is 5-7 horses in a race, you will only get a pay out if your horse wins or comes second, with the second placed horse getting one quarter of the odds.
