Cheltenham Festival Day 1 Betting Update

The 2021 Cheltenham Festival is here and although it will be an extremely different event for everyone involved, it hasn’t put punters off backing their favourite horses.

Willie Mullins is being backed for a flying start with the very talented Appreciate It the firm favourite to win the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. The runner-up in last year’s Champion Bumper to Ferny Hollow has gone unbeaten this season for the Closutton trainer.

The bulk of support for day one of the Festival was for Appreciate It, who has seen his odds clipped into 11/10 from 11/8 to land the opener.

Henry de Bromhead’s Ballyadam is 6/1 to reverse the placings with the favourite having finished 3¼ lengths behind him at the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown. Metier for Harry Fry is the 9/2 second favourite while another Mullins’ runner Blue Lord is a 10/1 shot.

Honeysuckle will also be hoping to keep punters sweet on the opening day as the unbeaten superstar has been trimmed down to 2/1 favourite from 9/4 to win the Champion Hurdle, the biggest race of the day on Tuesday.

The brilliant mare won the Mares’ Hurdle in 2020 and is strongly fancied to stop last year’s Champion Hurdle winner Epatante (4/1) from landing back-to-back titles.

There has also been strong support for the Denise Foster trained Abacadabras who is 15/2 from 9/1 with his form at the track very positive having gone so close in the Supreme last year behind Shishkin.

Bet here.

*Prices correct at time of publication