Online Betting Central

Are you beginning to get excited about the Cheltenham Festival? We certainly are, it is the one race meeting that we never miss no matter what the weather. There is no such thing as a boring Cheltenham Festival; every one that we have attended (which I believe is about 10 of them) has been the racing highlight of the year, and we expect that 2012 will be just as good as the rest.

We note that Ruby Walsh failed to get his ban overturned, which does seem a little harsh. It means that he will miss Betfair Day at Newbury which is the best card before Cheltenham in March. There is still a chance that he might be able to ride in the Hennessey Gold Cup on 12th February at Leopardstown if he can persuade the stewards to defer the ban.

It seems to us that the ban was a little harsh in the first place. Whilst he was riding Pearl Swan and was leading Grumeti which was being ridden by Wayne Hutchinson the stewards decreed that he had caused interference. As a result Grumeti was awarded first place and Walsh got a three day ban. According to Walsh the interference was minimal. He agreed that is was sufficient to change the result of the race, but not to award a suspension.

Currently we are making our Cheltenham Festival picks. So far Quel Esprit is looking an interesting contender for the Gold Cup; more thoughts on this in the next post.