Cheltenham Gold Cup 2012 tips and stats suggest Long Run is invincible

The Cheltenham Gold Cup tips are going to be highly sought after on Friday when the feature race of the entire Cheltenham Festival takes place and Cheltenham Betting will be looking to make it another successful race having backed Imperial Commander to victory in this race two years ago at 9/1. The best tips in this race are often the ones that fits the stats and one horse stands out as the most likely winner in the Cheltenham Gold Cup 2012.

There are certain “must have” stats for this race.  Three stats have been met by all of the winners in the last ten years and one that highlights what a great race this is to bet on is the fact that the winner has been in the first three in the Gold Cup betting for each of the last ten years. That obviously narrows the field to three this year and those three horses are Long Run, Kauto Star and Burton Port. The other two “must have” stats for this race in the past ten years have been a previous Grade One chase win and between two and five runs in the season of the race and both Long Run and Kauto Star pass both trends whilst Burton Port fails both of those so we can probably put a line through that runner. See the full list of Gold Cup Runners here.

There are several more stats that nine out of the last ten Gold Cup winners have met and these should help to decide between the two favourites, Long Run and Kauto Star. Both horses have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup so they meet the stat where nine out of ten winners have previously won or placed at the Cheltenham Festival. The other four stats that nine of the last ten winners have met are being aged seven to nine, being officially rated 166 or more, having won a chase this season and having had between six and fourteen runs over fences. Long Run meets all the stats comfortably whilst Kauto Star misses out on two, the age stat and the amount of runs stat. The latter isn’t a major concern as Kauto Star was the only horse in the last ten years to upset that stat previously but the age is a concern, Kauto Star is three years older than the ceiling of the ideal age group and will be the oldest winner in sixty winners should he oblige on Friday. This suggests that Long Run should not only have the measure of Kauto Star in the race this year like he did last year, he is possibly the perfect contender this year for the race.

 

If one stat perhaps has less merit than others, it could be the one about all winners being in the first three of the betting. It shows the fancied horses do well but the horses don’t know their odds so if you throw that one out and apply the rest the best each way bet at bigger odds looks to be Quel Esprit. This horse only falls down narrowly on the fact that he is rated 160 rather than 160 or more and also that he has not technically placed at the Cheltenham Festival before. He did finish fourth in the Champion Bumper though so has run extremely well at the Festival and the official rating is another ‘man made’ stat so that can be forgiven slightly for an each way bet at a big price. For more Cheltenham Festival tips on the final day, click this link.