Magnificent seven: the key tracks for a Cheltenham prep and the best bets who ran at them

How many Cheltenham Festival winners did we see at the Dublin Racing Festival last weekend? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard that question being asked over the last week and it’s a perfectly legitimate one given the DRF’s recent influence at the festival.

In the three years since the turn of the decade, 18 of the 84 Cheltenham Festival winners had their prep run at the Dublin Racing Festival, just over one in five. However, those 18 winners came from a total of 179 who ran at the Leopardstown fixture, so it stands to reason so many won.

That means just one in ten horses who ran at the DRF went on to Cheltenham glory and, when viewed in that context, the record of all the horses who ran there is nothing special.