Cheltenham 2017 Preview Night

 

 

THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT

 

Following the major success and great feedback from our first two Cheltenham Preview Nights, last year and the year before, we are excited to announce details of our 2017 offering. We are very aware that punters have a choice of dozens of these events to attend in the run up to the Festival, but we are determined that our one is different in that it will be focussing exclusively on the gambling aspect of the week. We will not have a panel that are there to waffle on. They will very definitely be talking about prices, value, gambling angles, lays and steamers.

 

When: Saturday 11th March 2017 (615pm Champagne reception, followed by four course dinner inc wine)

Where: The Bleeding Heart Restaurant, Bleeding Heart Yard, off Greville Street, Hatton Garden, London EC1N 8SJ

 

 
 

The Restaurant and Venue

http://www.bleedingheart.co.uk/
An absolute star off the beaten track in a Holborn courtyard worth finding for its excellent New French cooking... Zagat London Restaurants
 

(V option available too)

 
 

The Panel

 

 

Sean Boyce is again our chairman for the night having done such a superb job the last two years. He's been a presenter for At The Races since the start and he'll definitely be giving us some nuggets of information as well as making sure we don't fight too much. In his college days Sean was encouraged to have ante post bets for the Gold Cup on Garrison Savannah whilst he was out injured. The impeccable source of this info was the stage manager for a theatre production he was in. He couldn't watch the race as their was a matinee performance that afternoon. He says he can still remember his stable mole sticking his head through the lighting box window in the middle of an emotional scene on stage grinning from ear to ear and giving him the thumbs up. "Garry had won and the audience was wondering why I was grinning inanely during one of the tensest moments of the play".

 

Rory Delargy is a UK Racing analyst who writes a tipping column for The Irish Field. He proved such a success at our 2015 Preview Night that several attendees wanted to pay for 2016 on that night if we could confirm that Rory was going to be on the panel again in 2016. The great news is that he was and he is back again for 2017!

Rory acquired his love of jumps racing from his dad at a very young age, and remembers running home from school just in time to catch Silver Buck beating Bregawn in the 1982 Gold Cup. “That’ll win next year", he said, pointing at the runner-up. That wasn't a bad first ever ante post bet!

His best bet was also his worst bad beat - he was convinced that Asian Maze was a superstar when seeing her win at Punchestown as a novice, and he spent the six months leading up to the 2006 Champion Hurdle backing her to win at huge odds. It was assumed she’d go for the Stayers, but Rory was convinced otherwise, and odds of 100/1 all in were frighteningly tempting. When one unnamed firm went 66/1 NRNB, Rory took to the streets to shovel what he could on at the price, and by the day of the race he’d staked more on her than he’d ever done before. Come the day, she was as short as 12/1, and the selection of Tom Segal in the Racing Post, but was brought down by a swinging hurdle before halfway. To add insult to injury, she went on to beat the Champion Hurdle third by seventeen lengths at Aintree, and poor old Rory was left to ponder what might have been.

A Cheltenham resident Rory has not missed a day of the festival since the decade he worked for Ladbrokes but this year he'll be the one sole Irishman flying from Cheltenham to Ireland to cover Cheltenham for an Irish firm whilst all the other Irishmen are going in the other direction.

 

Neil Channing attended his first Cheltenham Festival in the early 80s. The 1st Cheltenham races he watched were in the Sea Pigeon/Monksfield/Night Nurse era but the really early memories were the days of Desert Orchid when, as the college bookie, he cheered home Norton's Coin and moaned as Yahoo was collared close home.

An early bookmaking hero bet £10,000 in cash on Beech Road while Neil was standing and chatting to him in the Cheltenham ring. Although that was the year Kribensis won, the memory of the relaxed way the transaction occurred so impressed him that he just knew this was the game for him. The next eight years were spent as a Silver Ring bookmaker and his final five years on the course were as a front row Tattersalls bookie with too many wild swings to recall.

These days he never even thinks of going to the course, choosing instead to wake up at 4am and to sit on the internet reading everything possible rather than wasting time travelling.

 

Russ Wiseman is looking forward to his 27th Festival and he is delighted to be with us to celebrate his 100th Cheltenham Festival Preview. Russ hopes that some of you will try and inflict some pain on SportingBet during the week, he's their PR man and his worse fear is writing the press release of the Willie Mullins day one disaster.

 

Lydia Hislop

Lydia Hislop has worked as a journalist and broadcaster in horseracing since 1996. She joined Racing UK at its outset, alongside stints at Channel 4 and the BBC, and is now one of its leading presenters. She currently writes the popular weekly Road To Cheltenham column for sportinglife.com, having previously been a columnist for the Times and Guardian, racing correspondent for London’s Evening Standard and contributor to the Racing Post.

 

The evening is limited to around 45 people (including the panel) and places are sure to be popular so book your seat now to avoid any disappointment. TICKETS GO ON GENERAL SALE NOON SATURDAY 11th FEBRUARY 2017 - TICKETS NOW ON SALE

THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT

 

 

I'd like to buy one ticket £100.00- SOLD OUT

For two tickets £200.00 - SOLD OUT

 

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