The Grand National may be the one day of the year when every man and his dog in the UK temporarily dons their betting hat and sticks a tenner on a horse they like the name of.

But the Cheltenham Festival has long been known as the highlight of the racing year for the serious racing punter.

And this year the improving weather appears to be the main talking point for those considering their fixed odds and spread betting options over the four days of action.

Firstly I need to stress that I’m no horse racing betting expert. My idea of spotting a good nag is when I realise the missus is about to trip over the dirty five-a-side kit I’ve left dumped in the hallway.

However, the Spreadex racing team are slightly better informed on equine matters and all the chatter certainly seems to be on whether the weather will throw the form book out of the window.

The going is currently rated at ‘soft’ and may even improve to ‘good to soft’. But how will this affect the betting during the Greatest Show on Turf?

Going to great lengths to offer Cheltenham Festival bets

Well, when betting on horse racing there is much more to it these days than simply selecting who is going to win the Gold Cup this year.

While fixed odds betting offers plenty of interest from the likes of multiples or accumulators or forecast or tricast betting, it’s the spreads where the real variety comes into play.

Spread betting offers a multitude of selections either across the whole four days of the festival, across each day of racing or on the individual races themselves.

You can bet on the performance of certain jockeys, play match bets where you bet on whether one horse will beat (or lose) to another, or bet on Race Indices , which allow you to get against a horse as well as getting with a horse.

Spread betters looking to put their Cheltenham bets on before the start of the festival love to play the Card Markets.

For example, you can bet on the Winning Distances across the festival (distance between winning horse and second horse for each race aggregated), Biggest Winning Starting Price (horse with biggest fixed odds SP to win at the festival), Biggest Winning Distance (biggest distance between horse and second horse from all races at the festival) or the Number of Irish Winners.

With the Card Markets in mind, one particular theory from some punters is that the improving weather and harder ground could make the races more competitive, potentially reducing the winning distances, increase the likelihood of a bigger priced horse coming home and favouring Irish horses who have had better conditions to race on recently.

So is that true? Let’s have a look at some key Cheltenham Festival betting statistics from the previous 10 years.

Betting results from the last 10 years at the Cheltenham Festival

Year	Going (on first day of the festival)	No. of Irish Winners	Biggest winning SP	Biggest winning distance
2013	Soft	14	50	20
2012	Good	5	40	8
2011	Good	13	40	24
2010	Good to soft	7	40	9
2009	Good to soft	9	33	16
2008	Good to soft	7	66	19
2007	Soft	5	50	12
2006	Good to soft	10	50	9
2005	Good	9	40	8
2004	Good	4	50	9

Make what you will from the above, but it’s difficult to back up the above theory based on the make-ups from the last 10 years.

What it does show is there are shocks to be had, great performances to savour and plenty of Irish successes sure to be seen. The difficulty is just picking exactly which spread bets or fixed odds bet will be the ones to turn a profit.

I would love to tell you how to do that and to pass on some expert Cheltenham Festival betting tips – but I’ve got some dirty football laundry that needs to be sorted out…