Cheltenham Festival: 5 Horses To Oppose
Published: 9th February 2025
Which Cheltenham Festival runners are trading too short in the market this year? Which horses are bound to attract far too much popular support? In the lead up to the Cheltenham Festival, today our racing editor Stephen Harris declares 5 horses to oppose at Cheltenham 2025.
The Cheltenham Festival is traditionally a four day punting frenzy, with punters smashing into top class racing and the bookmakers playing stronger and bigger than at any other time in the racing calendar.
The Cheltenham Festival always offers some excellent opportunities to stand your opinion and often “get” some over hyped, underpriced horses “in the hod” in fiercely competitive races. Here we identify five “lays” that have holes in them and are ripe for opposing at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival.
#1 – Peace and Co
Triumph Hurdle – Friday 13th March – Current price to lay on Betfair 9/4
Nicky Henderson’s ex-French juvenile received a lofty 155 rating from Timeform when winning in bad ground at Doncaster on his debut (unraceable deep ground and plenty of wide margin winners at that meeting), and was duly backed off the boards to follow up in a fair contest at the trials meeting over this course and distance in January. He eventually scrambled home in a muddling contest after taking a grip in the early stages, not impressing at all in my view and certainly possessing an ungainly head carriage that seems to have bypassed the media completely.
He clearly has an engine and plenty of potential with the fast pace here likely to help him drop the bridle, but he is quite simply wildly underpriced in a race that is always competitive and full of unexposed contenders (and on much quicker ground than any of his three career wins have been achieved on).
Lay Peace and Co. in the Triumph Hurdle at Betfair now.
#2 – More of That
World Hurdle – Thursday 12th March – 4/1
Jonjo O’Neill’s yard has endured a torrid winter, with very few runners in general and a huge losing run that was only snapped in January. Last years winner of this prestigious staying prize was very disappointing on his seasonal reappearance at Newbury when turned over at odds-on, (very tired from two out in the testing ground, enduring a hard race in the process), and it is simply a leap of faith to expect him to return to his peak in March.
The 2025 renewal looks very tough too, with Saphir du Rheu, Zarkander and Rock on Ruby all coming here fit
