Irish Cheltenham Festival team just 6/1 to beat last year’s record-breaking 14 tally

it’s just 50 days until Cheltenham 2014 and with champion trainer Willie Mullins heading a potentially dominant Irish team to the festival, it is just 6/1 about the raiders beating last year’s record-breaking tally of 14 winners.

That 2013 tally was the first time Irish-trained winners outscored the home team – 14-13 – but the RaceBets firm aren’t ruling out an even greater success-rate during the week that counts more than any other.

Although RaceBets go 6/4 about nine to 11 winners being the most likely Irish tally, they are taking no chances on another record-breaking bonanza and are just 6/1 about the visitors notching 15 or more winners in their always popular Irish-trained-winners betting.

“At first glance, 6/1 might not seem generous about Irish trainers surpassing last year but when you take into account that Irish-trained horses are currently favourites to win 15 races, and second favourite to win a further five, all of a sudden the price looks reasonable I think,” said the RaceBets spokesman, Joseph Burke, yesterday.

There are again 27 races at this year's festival, with the charity race not counting, and pessimists can get 5/2 about zero to eight winners. However, optimists might do well to bear in mind the statistical phenomenon that the Irish put in last year. Those 14 winners came from 92 runners, producing a remarkable strike-rate of 15.21 per cent. The home team's total of 13 from 330 runners was a mere 3.93 per cent in comparison.

Leading trainer
Mullins's status as the bulwark of the potential Irish team is reflected in 8/11 odds to be leading trainer at the festival for the third time in four years. Currently he houses the favourite, or joint-favourite, in 10 of the races. His stable jockey, Ruby Walsh, is 4/5 with RaceBets to be leading jockey for an eighth time in just 11 years.

One Mullins-trained Grade One star that won’t be going to the festival, though, is the 2012 Hennessy winner Quel Esprit who returned to action over the weekend with a point-to-point victory and is set to return to racecourse action at Leopardstown next month in the big hunters chase. Quel Esprit is not eligible to run in the Foxhunters at Cheltenham as he won a race worth more than £16,000 sterling after June 2011.

“The plan is to go to Leopardstown on Hennessy day on February,” said Mullins’s son, and champion amateur jockey, Patrick, yesterday. “Quel Esprit was disappointing last year and we just felt it was an avenue we could take advantage of with him. There’s some smart hunters in Ireland though, Salsify, On The Fringe and Tammys Hill.”

He added of the grey who now races in the colours of Jackie Mullins: “It would be unusual for a horse on the downgrade like him to go and win the big ones but if he gives a few decent spins, I’ll be happy.”

In other betting news, Paddy Power have installed First Lieutenant as their 5/2 favourite for next month's Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown, believing Bryan Cooper will choose him over Last Instalment from the powerful Gigginstown Stud team.