Cheltenham Festival Match Bets: Henderson vs Mullins

Tipping / Timeform / 13 March 2010 / Leave a comment

Timeform expect to see Willie Mullins in the Cheltenham winners' enclosure again this year

With Paul Nicholls looking nigh-on unopposable in the 'Top Trainer at the Festival' market, Timeform turn their attentions to the next two in the betting.

"the best course of action is to play the outsider of two, most likely to be Mullins"

In the Timeform Million sales race at Newmarket, the fifth home earned almost £25k. Yes, £25k for finishing fifth! In every sport it used to be all about the winner, with the rest nowhere. Not now, in a day and age when there are rosettes all round in school sports day and the 'battle for fourth' in the Premiership is covered as much as the race for first.

However, to create competition, it's understandable that the betting world sometimes overlooks the (likely) winners, and, just as Kauto Star and Denman have the Gold Cup between them, Paul Nicholls has the Festival trainers' title sewn up. Therefore, Betfair offer us a match between the next two biggest guns, namely Nicky Henderson and Willie Mullins. On paper, it's a close one to call. Let's give Henderson the RSA Chase, courtesy of either Punchestowns or Long Run, but even it up with Quevega in the David Nicholson Mares' Hurdle, a race she ran away with twelve months ago. Equally, Henderson's strong hand in the Champion Hurdle is to some extent cancelled out by Mullins' traditionally powerful squad for the Bumper, though this year's does look thinner than usual. After that, there are no real standouts from either camp.

Barbers Shop is high profile but has no better chance in the Ryanair than Mullins' Quel Esprit does in the Neptune Novices Hurdle, and then there are several instances where the main representatives from both stables are closely matched in the same race, such as Quantitativeteeasing [9.0] and Mourad [11.0] in the Coral Cup and Riverside Theatre [9.0] and Sports Line [10.5] in the Arkle.

Numerically, Henderson and Mullins will have roughly the same amount of runners over the four days, and, like with everything at Cheltenham, luck is going to play some part in the outcome of this particular head-to-head. With that in mind, and the fact there's little or nothing between them in terms of firepower, the best course of action is to play the outsider of two, most likely to be Mullins, if only because of Henderson's superior historical record, with thirty-four Festival wins to Mullins' fifteen. However, Henderson had something of a head start, and, over time, Mullins has increased both the size and strength of his Cheltenham cavalry: remember it was three wins apiece in 2009. We at Timeform would price up the match at around 1.75 Henderson and 2.25 Mullins. The rest, as they say, is up to you.

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