Cheltenham... Only Bettor: Listen to the 2024 Festival de-brief

• Cheltenham Festival 2024 debrief

• Kevin and Daryl's best and worst of the Festival

• Series antepost results review

• Rachael Blackmore Serial Winners Fund at £205K

• Betfair NRMB for 2024 Aintree Grand National

The Cheltenham Festival is over for another year but what we saw at Prestbury Park last week contained plenty of pointers for the future.

Host Natalie Green is joined by her usual Betfair team of Daryl Carter and Kevin Blake to review highs and lows of the four days as well as looking back at some of the antepost bets from this series. The team also discuss how Cheltenham could be improved.

Listen to the show and read a summary of its key topics below.

Listen to Cheltenham...Only Bettor Festival Debrief here!

Best performances at Cheltenham Festival

Natalie invited Daryl and Kevin to rank their top five performances of the Festival and, after putting in a few caveats that were designed to fend off criticism on in the Comments section, the pair got down to business.

Top of the list for Daryl was Gaelic Warrior and the Betting.Betfair tipster said:

"This horse could come back next year and really thrown his hat into the Champions Chase ring. A lot of people were doubting him and he put them right. He looked a class above his opponents when winning the Arkle. It was coming age for him."

Kevin was similarly impressed by Gaelic Warrior's dominant performance and said:

"I have him at the top of my list as well. He has bouts of unprofessionalism about him in the past and went some way to silencing the doubts about him here. He was really good."

Listen to the rest of the show to find which other horsse impressed Daryl and Kevin at Cheltenham and get Natalie's highlights.

Cheltenham Festival flops

Daryl and Kevin also selected their flops of the meeting.

Kevin said: "Number one for me was Tullyhill [in the Supreme]. I don't know what went wrong there. He jumped well but he just went out like a light. It was a bit bamboozling. I don't think we will see the very best of him until he goes fencing but this was disappointing.

Daryl took a different angle and chose trainer Nicky Henderson as his flop of the week.

Darly said: "He fell for the media agenda that his horses were running badly. When it go to Thursday, he seemed to throw his toys out of the pram and decide not to run horses... Henderson said Sir Gino was fine but did not run because of how his other horses were running... I don't know what he was expecting."

Series antepost bets review

The team look back across the series at their antepost bets, looking at the best and worst, starting with Envoi Allen at 14/115.00 that failed to deliver for Daryl.

He had more luck elsehwere, though, as he explained: "I took a chance with Corbetts Cross [winner of the Challenge Cup on the first day of Cheltenham] at 16/117.00. I thought that [owner] JP McManus was moving his chess pieces around and I got in at the right time. I had a bit of luck."

Kevin's decision to back Monty's Star at 12/113.00 for the Brown Advisory proved smart when he went off a 4/15.00 and finished second.

Kevin said: "He's a lovely horse and ran a great race. Home By The Lee was one I backed at 33/134.00 for the Stayers. He finished third. The race didn't really go for him. They crawled around at a slow pace. He ran great to finish third. For anyone who backed him each-way at 33s, it was a great outcome, although we are looking for winners."

Listen to the show to hear about more antepost bets from this series of Cheltenham Only Bettor.

Now read Cheltenham Festival 2025 Tips: Three eye-catchers from the 2024 meeting