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Could drying ground make for a change in the markets and a more punter-friendly Cheltenham Festival?

Slade Steel (far side) and Mystical Power charge clear in a testing Supreme
The 2024 Cheltenham Festival was the sixth in the last seven years to open on either soft or heavy groundCredit: Alan Crowhurst

The weather gods look increasingly likely to provide good to soft ground when the Cheltenham Festival gets under way on Tuesday, a phenomenon which for many years seemed the norm, but which has actually occurred only once in the last seven years. 

The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle kicked off the 2018 meeting on heavy ground, while with the exception of 2022, every festival has started on going described officially as soft. 

That means there could be some musical chairs at the top of the markets as punters and layers begin to re-examine the claims of longtime favourites whose short odds are based on soft and heavy-ground form. 

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France correspondent

Published on inCheltenham Festival

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