Cheltenham Open Meeting Horse Racing Betting 2009

Every horse racing betting fan worth their salt knows that the Paddy Power Gold Cup is a crucial part of the patchwork in the National Hunt season quilt; yet forming the centrepiece of the Cheltenham Open Meeting, the wider picture of horse racing events that are hosted during the process of the important November meet are sometimes overlooked. Cheltenham Open Meeting Horse Racing Betting 2009 offers up many opportunities for the internet horse racing community to practice their noble punting art from the comfort of their own home, as increasing numbers of leading online sports betting bookmakers front a dedicated Cheltenham Open Meeting horse racing betting 2009 section. Albeit focusing on the Paddy Power Gold Cup for the largest part.

For those internet horse racing betting followers looking for a bit of an ante-post insight into the main draw at the Cheltenham Open Meeting horse racing betting 2009 bonanza, namely the Paddy Power Gold Cup, then Free Betting Online suggest the following piece of timely advice. Never dismiss the favourites, as retrospectively some 40% of the winners during the past decade of the Cheltenham Open Meeting's feature race on the card have been pre-race favourites, whilst six and seven year olds are worth keeping a weather eye on in terms of betting as this age group has yielded seven of the past ten winners.

Cheltenham Open Meeting Generates Growing Online Horse Racing Betting Interest Year On Year

More famously associated with the Cheltenham Festival in mid-March every year (you know, the one that spawns the Grade One Cheltenham Gold Cup that piques more than just the passing interest of us horse racing betting fans), the Cheltenham Open Meeting provides another opportunity for the Cheltenham racecourse to do what it does best – stage a memorable meeting. Traditionally hosted in the middle of November, the Cheltenham Open Meeting forms an integral piece of the current National Hunt season jigsaw that's just started to be pieced together between now and April 2010.

Short of referring to the Cheltenham Open Meeting as merely a dress rehearsal ahead of the Festival four months down the line, the event nevertheless draws huge crowds and genuine excitement at the prospect of observing some of the prime contenders who'll be returning to Cheltenham the following spring to do it all over again. Only with respect, probably in slightly more esteemed equine company. In reality though the Open Meeting serves as a useful indication as to how a selection of potential Cheltenham Festival horses will perform over the often gruelling Prestbury Park course, which explains why many of the top horse racing yards bring notable horses and jockeys to the course to get a feel for their surroundings; especially if owners and trainers have a view to returning here with these mounts in the new year. That said, with regards the Paddy Power Gold Cup, none of its eventual victors over the past decade have repeated that success in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March.

Paddy Power Gold Cup Betting Is Centre Stage During Cheltenham Open Meeting 2009

The Cheltenham Open Meeting envelops the three days of competitive racing, from Friday through to Sunday, with the feature race being Saturday's Paddy Power Gold Cup 2009. 24 hours before that however, and the scene is very much different as Friday is Countryside Race Day, where racing is interspersed with a country fair ambience and physical presence, complete with trade stands, country sports exhibitions and birds of prey demonstrations adding to the unique sense of occasion. Still, amid this rather more genteel, family-orientated approach to the quintessentially English race-going experience, there's plenty of racing action to whet the Cheltenham Open Meeting horse racing betting 2009 whistle. Although that said the Cross Country Steeplechase might not be one that the National Hunt horse racing betting purists circle on their calendar, as contenders negotiate hedges, banks, timber and steeplechases in the middle of the Cheltenham track.

Paddy Power Gold Cup Day is an altogether different horse racing betting beast though, and is still romantically referred to as the Mackeson courtesy of its long time association with the sponsor which ended in 1996; yet has also been known as the Murphy's Gold Cup and the Thomas Pink Gold Cup until Paddy Power took the reigns back in 2003. ante-post activity is frenzied in the build-up to the race itself with everyone from competing yards, owners, trainers and jockeys through to online Cheltenham Open Meeting horse racing betting 2009 bookies and the internet sports betting fans themselves, with results of the two mile, four and a half furlong race also adding to the on-going accumulative points tally in the National Hunt Order of Merit stakes.

Famous National Hunt Trainer, Martin Pipe Holds Most Winners In Paddy Power Gold Cup Record

Race horse training legend, Martin Pipe boasts an impressive and almost daunting record of achievement in the Paddy Power Gold Cup, having trained five of the winners in the past decade, seeing horses like Lady Cricket, Shooting Light and Our Vic pip the competition to the post when it mattered. Since his son David Pipe has taken over the famous stable, the nearest they've got to beginning to emulate that success was in 2006 when Vodka Bleu came in three lengths behind Exotic Dancer to claim second place.

The final day of racing at Cheltenham in November sees the running of the Greatwood Handicap Hurdle, which as a proven handicap race within the National Hunt season is growing in both popularity and reputation. A £65,000 purse for the winner is incentive enough, yet similar to the Paddy Power Gold Cup depicting potential pointers to the Cheltenham Gold Cup later in the jump campaign, the Greatwood Handicap Hurdle is seen as a useful barometer as to potential Champion Hurdle runner and rider performance that's hosted by Cheltenham later in the present season. Again though, we emphasise the word 'probably' as flicking through the respective history books and we discover that only the single winner of the Greatwood in the past ten years – 2002 victor, Rooster Booster – landed that and the 2003 Champion Hurdle double in the same season.