£1 million up for grabs in Tote Placepot

Wednesday is traditionally a difficult day to pick winners at the Cheltenham Festival with the Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle, Grand Annual Handicap Chase and Champion Bumper well-known for their shock results.

Commander of Fleet (50/1) and Heaven Help Us (33/1) are the two most recent winners of the Coral Cup. Global Citizen was the 28/1 winner of the Grand Annual last year and it’s not too long ago that Croco Boy popped up at 66/1 in the same race. The Champion Bumper is also littered with double-figure priced winners. With that in mind it is worth looking at the Tote’s Placepot as an alternative bet today.

Tote are offering new online customers an enhanced sign up offer this week of bet €10 get €40 in Tote credit. The credit is split into €20 for win/place bets and €20 for exotic bets such as the Placepot, exacta and trifecta.

For each day of Cheltenham Tote are guaranteeing the Placepot Pool for a cool £1 million pounds.

In order to win a share in the Placepot Pool you need to correctly select a horse to finish in the places (doesn’t need to win the race) in each of the first six races on the day.

Let’s take a look at the type of strategy that gives the best chance of success in today’s Placepot. The first leg is the Ballymore Novices Hurdle with 10 runners which means the first three home count for Placepot purposes.

Impaire Et Passe, Hermes Allen and Good Land all look to have solid place credentials and picking any two from the three should get you through this leg.

Next up is the Brown Advisory Novice Chase with 11 runners (again the first three places count). Gerri Colombe is many people’s banker bet of the entire week, so barring accidents he should finish in the first three.

The third leg of the Placepot is the fiendishly difficult Coral Cup with 26 runners and only the first 4 count for the Placepot. The big stables tend to do well in this race and the likes of Gordon Elliott, Willie Mullins, Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls often have contenders that run well or win. That said, they have 10 runners between them this time, which doesn’t really narrow down the field enough. Selecting one runner from each of those 4 stables will give you a fighting chance of getting past this leg.

The fourth leg is the Queen Mother Champion Chase with 7 runners which means you need to select a horse to finish first or second to remain in the Placepot. Edwardstone and Energumene head the market and it would be quite a shock if neither of them makes the first two.

Leg five of the Placepot is the 16 runner Cross Country Chase (first three places count) and favourites tend to do well here. Gordon Elliott has the best record in this race in recent years, including when saddling the first two home twelve months ago. He has two strong contenders again in Delta Work and Galvin.

The 20 runner Grand Annual Handicap chase (first four places) is the final leg of the Placepot. The first three in the betting are all Irish-trained, but British-trained horses have a much better record in this race than their Irish counterparts. In each of the last two renewals three of the first four home were British-trained so it may pay to side with some of their eight runners to find a placed horse.

Suggested Placepot selections:

Leg 1 - Impaire Et Passe + Hermes Allen

Leg 2 - Gerri Colombe

Leg 3 - Fil Dor + Scaramanga + Red Risk + Bold Endeavour

Leg 4 - Edwardstone + Energumene

Leg 5 - Delta Work + Galvin

Leg 6 - Third Time Lucki + Elixir De Nutz + Thyme White + Global Citizen

Permutation 2 x 1 x 4 x 2 x 2 x 4 = 128 lines @ 10c = €12.80

The Placepot dividend is declared to a €1/£1 stake, but you can play the bet for as little as a 10c/10p unit stake. Depending on how many of your horses are placed in each race will determine how much of the final dividend you win, but you do need to have at least one placed horse in each leg of the Placepot to share in the dividend.