NRMB at Cheltenham: The Traders’ view

On January 1st, William Hill became the first bookmaker to offer Non Runner Money Back on all 28 Cheltenham Festival races.

With the concession now in place for a couple of weeks, we spoke to Jamie McBride, one of the horse racing traders, to get a view on how it has changed the markets.

Which horses have been particularly popular since the NRMB concession came into effect?

The Real Whacker has been surprisingly popular since his New Year’s Day win at Cheltenham. Much was made of his good time compared to a handicap on the same card but I am still somewhat amazed by the level of interest given his relatively unfashionable yard. The Brown Advisory seems to be his preferred target at this stage.

Have you noticed any noteworthy horses drift?

There have been mixed messages surrounding Blazing Khal of late. It seems clear that if he makes the Stayers’ Hurdle it will be off the back of a less than perfect preparation and he has been a drifter in the last week or so.

Are there any horses you expected to lay which you have ended up doing less of?

Allaho is another horse who is having an interrupted prep for the festival and we have seen plenty of opposition to him in the Ryanair market. Facile Vega apparently didn’t convince everyone with the ease of his victory over Christmas and has been less popular than expected in the opening race of the meeting.

Are handicaps or Graded races notoriously bigger from an ante-post perspective?

We tend to see greater turnover on the Graded races, we bet on the Grade 1 races pretty much 12 months of the year and they obviously feature the most high-profile horses whereas the handicaps only tend to take shape in the weeks before the festival.

At this stage, which horse/s are we most fearful of?

At present our worst results are Honeysuckle, Thyme Hill and Appreciate It. None of those are overly concerning as Honeysuckle has Constitution Hill to beat, Thyme Hill still doesn’t convince with his jumping even after bouncing back at Kempton and Appreciate It faces some stiff looking competition if pointed towards the Arkle.

Biggest price we laid Facile Vega, Jonbon, Constitution Hill etc.

Facile Vega was put in at 4/1 for the Supreme after his impressive Bumper win last year. Jonbon was 14/1 for the Arkle after being well beaten in the Supreme but most of the damage in our book was done at around 5/1 on the back off positive messages from the yard in early autumn. We have actually laid 33/1 Constitution Hill after his debut win, anyone who took advantage of that price will be on good terms with themselves, he was 2/1 in the aftermath of last year’s Champion Hurdle.

Give us an ante-post lucky-15 head of the 2023 Cheltenham Festival.

Chapeau Du Soleil (Bumper), Paisley Park (Stayers’ Hurdle), Halka Du Tabert (Mares’ Novices Hurdle) and Blood Destiny (Triumph Hurdle).