Triumph rises but Gold Cup still way ahead of the field with Paddy Power

The Gold Cup retained its runaway top spot in the Paddy Power turnover charts last week but the most surprising move came with the Triumph Hurdle climbing up ten places to number two despite being the first single-figure field since 1965.

The leap up the charts was put down to one horse in the nine-runner Grade 1, the beaten favourite Apple’s Shakira.

Paul Binfield, of Paddy Power, said: “Apple’s Shakira was the best backed horse of the week and her popularity helped the Triumph’s rise.”

Some of the big movers could be attributed to races having a better betting shape than last year with the Arkle - featuring another small field - still jumping up the table as last year Altior was a 1-4 winner.

Binfield added: “The Arkle was bottom of the 28 races last year, probably due to Altior’s SP turning a lot of punters off, but climbed halfway up the rankings this year.”

The biggest field for the Gold Cup since 2009 resulted in the Friday feature proving way more popular with the punters’ pound.

The impenetrable big-field handicaps did not appear until mid-table in the firm’s total turnover, both in their shops and on mobile and online, with the 15-runner Gold Cup way ahead of the rest in popularity with punters.

The Cheltenham Gold Cup: still the most popular race with Paddy Power puntersCredit: Mark Cranham

Binfield said: “The Gold Cup was easily the most popular race with turnover 50 per cent more than any other race and double the majority.

“No handicap made it into the top dozen contests this year, with a very similar picture in 2017, so in terms of turnover the handicaps at Prestbury Park seems to be outclassed by the Grade 1s.

“While the former will always have a place at these major meetings and punters still enjoy them very much, these figures do seem to indicate that, especially at Cheltenham, backers prefer to get their teeth stuck into a relatively short-priced banker.”

Initial online turnover totals at Corals showed the Supreme topped their charts but was skewed by the money-back offer on the first race of the festival.

When the turnover from the shops is added on Monday it is expected the Gold Cup will also top their list.

The Coral top ten races on turnover was: 1 Supreme Novices' (Money back offer race), 2 Gold Cup, 3 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle, 4 Triumph Hurdle, 5 Champion Chase, 6 Coral Cup (7 places online), 7 Mares' Novices', 8 Ryanair, 9 Stayers' Hurdle, 10 Utima Handicap Chase.

PADDY POWER TURNOVER TABLE (last year's positions in brackets)

1 Gold Cup (first)

2 Triumph Hurdle (12th)

3 Champion Chase (24th)

4 Stayers’ Hurdle (2nd)

5 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle (6th)

6 Ryanair Chase (7th)

7 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle (13th)

8 Champion Hurdle (3rd)

9 JLT Novices’ Chase (8th)

10 Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle (14th)

11 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle (4th)

12 Foxhunter Chase (9th)

13 Grand Annual Chase (10th)

14 Arkle Chase (28th)

15 Close Brothers Handicap Chase (23rd)

16 RSA Chase (16th)

17 Bumper (17th)

18 Pertemps Handicap Hurdle (25th)

19 Coral Cup (11th)

20 Cross Country Chase (18th)

21 Kim Muir Handicap Chase (19th)

22 County Handicap Hurdle (21st)

23 Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle (20th)

24 Brown Advisory Plate (15th)

25 Ultima Handicap Chase (27th)

26 National Hunt Chase (26th)

27 Mares’ Hurdle (5th)

28 Fred Winter Handicap Hurdle (22nd)

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