The numbers you need to solve the Cheltenham Festival handicaps - and four horses who fit the bill next week

More than a third of the races at next week's Cheltenham Festival will be handicaps – just as well, as the championship events creep from oligarchy to a Willie Mullins monopoly. If you want a good betting race the handicaps will always be there, like an old friend. That is unless Mullins has so many good novices that he can afford to campaign one like State Man.

State Man might be 1-3 for the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday, but two years ago he was lurking in the County Hurdle field off a mark of 141. He could be held up as an example of how futile it is to try to find a 'type' for festival handicaps. 

It is true that, when trying to tell a story about what is required to win the Kim Muir and the Boodles in one place, then you are going to have to take a few liberties. Aside from the hard numbers, which will be covered later, the unifying feature of most Cheltenham handicap winners is that hardly any land in their races by accident. All such winners are the results of months, perhaps even a whole year, of planning.