Cross Country ChaseThe now retired Spot Thedifference won the first running of the cross country at the 2005 meeting, finished runner up in 2006 and finished fourth in 2007. Upon his retirement he had won on seven occasions over the cross country fences at Cheltenham!
Cross Country Trends
All of the five winners have been trained in Ireland (and 15 of the last 16 placed horses!)
All five winners had previously won a cross country race
All of the five winners had won one of its last two starts
All of the five winners had won over at least three miles
Horses aged younger than eight have a very poor record in all cross country races at Cheltenham
It usually pays to avoid horses who are having their first run in cross country races - course experience is the key!
The Enda Bolger stable have had cross country fences especially built to train the horses over and this has obviously paid dividends with four winners out of the five races at the Festival and a remarkable 1-2-3 in the 2009 race.
Cross Country Tips 2009
The winner of the PP Hogan Cross Country Chase at Punchestown in February has gone on to win this race at Cheltenham in three of the last four years so the winner of that race in 2010 must go on our shortlist Cheltenham Tips for this race. The 2009 PP Hogan winner LAmi finished runner-up at Cheltenham so this is definitely a race to take notice of.
Garde Champetre goes for a hat-trick of wins in this race and is looking for his sixth win over the Cheltenham cross country course. However, he is racing here from a handicap mark of 161 for this race and if you consider Spot Thedifference's highest handicap win at Cheltenham was off 144 then Garde Champetre will have to be some horse to complete the three-timer.
He is obviously so good over these fences but at odds likely to be under 2/1 we should look elsewhere.
Stablemate Freneys Well is starting to come to the boil in these races and at the age of ten he is the perfect age to start improving on his two placed performances over these fences, including at last year's Festival. Take Freneys Well at 25/1 each-way (available at the time of writing)
Back Freneys Well at the best odds by clicking on the bookmaker logo by its name below
Cross Country Odds
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