66-1 and 33-1 winners ensure mammoth Cheltenham Placepot dividend

This year’s Cheltenham Festival finished with one of the highest Placepot dividends in the last decade with punters receiving £23,672 to a £1 stake.

The bumper figure is the fourth-highest dividend in the last ten years and follows on from another mammoth payout on day three of the Cheltenham Festival when the dividend was £14,087.30 to a £1 stake.

While favourite Lossiemouth won the opening race on Friday, the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle, the tone for the afternoon was set in the second contest, the County Hurdle, when market leader Pembroke was well beaten behind the 33-1 winner Faivoir.

Favourites continued to falter, with Corbetts Cross, favourite for the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, ducking out at the final hurdle, while Vaucelet was seventh in the St James’s Place Hunters’ Chase, a race won by 66-1 shot Premier Magic.

The biggest Placepot dividend for the Cheltenham Festival in the last decade came on the opening day of the 2019 meeting, when only one favourite – A Plus Tard – finished in the places. The results paid £91,283.10 to a £1 stake, with one punter scooping over £180,000 after placing a £2 bet.

That dividend is a distance clear of the second-highest figure for the Cheltenham Festival, with £44,616 returned to a £1 stake on the final day of the 2014 meeting.

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