Cheltenham: Belfast bookies keeping fingers crossed over Gold Cup result on St Patrick's Day

Bookmakers have been left licking their wounds this week, as the 2023 Cheltenham Festival results have thus far landed a series of big bets for the public.

But Brian Graham, director of Belfast bookies Sean Graham’s, is hoping that it may not be such a bad thing, as “punters now have plenty of money in their pockets” to help them put on more wagers for the Gold Cup - one of the biggest days in the horse-racing calendar.

“The results have been punter-friendly as opposed to bookmaker-friendly in the first few days,” Brian told the Belfast Telegraph

“There’s been a lot of fancied horses that have won, so the Irish have had a good meeting, Willie Mullins has had a good meeting, which would mean that the bookmakers have had a bad meeting.”

But with no winning favourites in any of yesterday’s meeting's seven races, the bookies’ luck seemed to be changing.

Irish trainer and former jockey Willie Mullins is responsible for seven of the 15 runners in Friday's JCB Triumph Hurdle, as well as Galopin Des Champs, the lead contender to win the Gold Cup.

“When you take the Grand National out of the equation, Gold Cup day is without a doubt the busiest for bookmakers across the land,” Brian continued.

“The fact that it falls on St Patrick’s Day - which will be a public holiday and a lot of people will be off work - that will probably make it even busier.

“The racing on Friday is top class and the Gold Cup looks to be an open enough race as well. A few people have plenty of ideas on what’s going to win and what isn’t. At the minute, Willie Mullins’ horse, Galopin Des Champs, is the favourite at 7/4.

“But there are 13 declared in the race and it looks very competitive. We’ll be hoping to get a bookies’ result there.”

Brian added that five favourite horses won during the first day of Cheltenham.

The Champion Hurdle was won by favourite Constitution Hill, and the Queen Mother Champion Chase was also won by the favourite, Energumene.

However, while Shishkin was tipped to be a sure thing for Thursday’s Ryanair Chase, Envoi Allen (13/2) ended up victorious.

That aside, Brian said there haven’t been too many surprise outcomes, nor are they expected.

“If people are looking for big price winners, they’re not getting them,” he said.

“The biggest-priced winner on Tuesday was 18-1. That was on one of the handicaps. Usually Cheltenham would throw up a couple of strange or funny results, and that hasn’t happened so far.

“Even on Wednesday, the biggest-priced winner was 22-1. There haven’t been huge shocks yet. We're just praying that because we’ve had a lot of rain, that when the ground dries out it makes it sticky and doesn’t really suit any of the horses on Friday to be honest.

“The four championship races are notoriously where the best horses show up. It’s like anything else, you almost do need a shock to get something big.

“Constitution Hill was 4/11, which was more or less odds on almost 1/3. Energumene and Shishkin were very close to even money and Galopin Des Champs will be just over even.

“The fields are smaller and it’s quantity more than quality, so they’re hard enough to get beat.

“Fingers crossed we get a bit of relief and we get some results at Sean Graham’s.”

The Cheltenham Festival has been building toward the Gold Cup, which will take place on Friday at 3.30pm.

ITV will have live coverage fronted by Ed Chamberlin.

Other races throughout the day include the JCB Triumph Hurdle (Grade 1), McCoy Contractors County Handicap Hurdle (Grade 3), Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle (Grade 1), the Foxhunter Chase, Mrs Paddy Power Mares' Chase (Grade 3), and the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle.