The value bets who can show the Cheltenham Festival isn't just for the big guns

The concentration of power in only a few hands is a recurring theme of the jumps season, and the Cheltenham Festival in particular. But punters should not be lulled into a false sense that the big trainers are bound to have everything to themselves in two weeks – racing is rarely that simple.

The festival has been lit up in the past by small-scale operations thriving on the biggest stage. Perhaps the best example in recent times was Mark Bradstock, the trainer Patrick Neville might bid to emulate by winning the Gold Cup with a novice, after Coneygree wrote his name into the history books when winning the race in 2015.

Bradstock's record that season should have been a sign his star was not to be underestimated. In that 2014-15 campaign, he sent out eight winners from 24 runners at a strike-rate of 33 per cent. Even without Coneygree's haul of four out of four, that was four winners from 20 runners at 20 per cent. Such a success rate measures up favourably to most of the top yards.