The Stayers Hurdle is the major race on day 3 of The Cheltenham Festival. At a distance of of 3 miles this Grade 1 race has 12 hurdles and is run on the new course. With a first prize of over £150,000, this is the major race of the season for long distance hurdling. In recent years, Big Bucks dominated this race, winning it in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. Other recent winners have included More of That and Thistlecrack.

The Stayers Hurdle has one of the few odds on favourites in the race this year in Paisley Park. The Cleeve Hurdle run in January is a big indicator for the Stayers. Favourites are 6/12 in this race and 8/12 came from the top 3 in the betting.

Paisley Park

He’ll win this if he stays on his feet, let’s just leave it at that. In all seriousness he’s already won the Cleeve Hurdle this year and probably looked better than he did last year when he won the race. He’s odds on to win at 8-11, so he doesn’t offer much value, but I simply can’t see him getting beaten. That is unless Benie Des Dieux comes here to make it a race, but she looks destined for the Mares Hurdle.

Summerville Boy

He was only 1 ½ lengths off Paisley Park in the Cleeve Hurdle in January and for a bit of extra value I would look at backing him again without Paisley Park. Betfair are currently running an antepost market for this and he’s currently 11-4. If it’s anywhere near that price on the day, that would be my go to bet.

  1. 10 of the previous 14 winners won their last race
  2. 17 of the last 18 winners were in the top 4 of the betting
  3. 12 of the previous 14 winners were priced at 10/1 or less
  4. No 5 year old horse has ever won this race
  5. Irish trained horses have won this race only three times since 1995
  6. Horses that finished outside of the top 2 in their previous race have only won this race 2 out of 19 attempts
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