December Schedule

2/12/24

In the second half of this month’s blog I have outlined the website’s December schedule into the New Year as everything changes for a couple of weeks based around when Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fall ahead of my usual mid-season mini-break in early January.

Before featuring what is planned for December, a quick mention for November as it’s been a long while since I have started the Jumps Season as strongly and the highlight has to be recommending ante-post winners of the two big handicaps of the Cheltenham November Meeting finding Il Ridoto at 10/1 (his SP as it transpired) in the Paddy Power Gold Cup and Burdett Road at 8/1 (returned at 7/2) in the Greatwood Hurdle. I hope that members had greater foresight than me to put them in a double! I am pretty sure that the Greatwood is red-hot handicap hurdle form and expect plenty of winners to come out of it.

With regards to the Cheltenham Festival columns (I’m particularly enjoying how the Arkle, Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup are shaping this season), after five weekly editions (and over 70,000 words - just so much going on this time of the year), I have put up just two ante-post recommendations so far. Playing it cool for now which worked well last season.

For new members this season, the ante-post recommendations in this column will start to pick once we are into the New Year and even more so when ‘Non Runner No Bet’ comes into play but I’d expect there to be around half a dozen in total heading into the busy the hectic festive schedule looking to pre-empt horses strengthening their claims over Christmas.

Onto the general sports side of the website and the World Darts Championships starts on December 15^th but the clear best two players in the world can’t meet in the final as Luke Humphries and Luke Littler are drawn to meet in the semi-finals. That is because Littler has only had one year on tour to accrue world ranking points which are put together over a two-year cycle so he is only the No.4 seed.

After meeting in the final back in early January, they have both since won TV Majors and also met in the most recent final last weekend when Humphries won again. However, I just favour Littler for the World Championships as he has been the more consistent of the pair in the autumn, having put up Michael Smith and Luke Humphries for the last two years at around 8/1 each ante-post as part of these blogs. No fancy prices this time however as Littler is the 2/1 favourite over Humphries at 3/1 and a resurgent Gary Anderson is third-fav at 10/1.

That’s all I have to say on the tournament but Mike Henderson will be giving his weekly views throughout the event in the General Sports column from next week. The final will take place on a Friday for the first time - January 3^rd. As defending champion, Humphries kicks off his title defence on the opening Sunday night with Littler not due to play until the following Saturday. I know that Mike is against Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price so, as they are in the same quarter, I’d be expecting him to be looking for some value in that section of the draw.

On Tuesday, December 17^th is Sports Personality of the Year where I hope that we’ll be raising a toast to Keely Hodgkinson having recommended her at 11/4 before she won Olympic Gold.

Now heavy odds-on ranging between 2/7 and 1/5, I’ll be gutted if she doesn’t attract more votes than Luke Littler and Sir Mark Cavendish who are a best-priced 4/1 and 22/1 second and third-favs, respectively. We don’t know the final shortlist yet but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they may not even be on it if the BBC choose to give the Young Sports Personality award to Littler and the Lifetime Achievement Award to the now-retired Cavendish, though James Anderson and Sir Andy Murray are two other strong contenders for that having also retired in 2024. As for the World Sports Star award, although there is no betting on it, I hope they give it to the pole vaulter, Amando Duplantis, as I thought he was the high point (in more ways than one) of the Olympics.

Then on December 21^st we have Usyk-Fury 2 covered by Will Steele who has done so well for us when previewing the biggest fights down the years where he will be looking for the best angles and of course Andy Richmond will continue his weekly NFL columns as the regular season reaches its climax before heading into the playoffs.

So, onto the Website Schedule for Christmas into the New Year.

Everything will continue as normal up to and including Christmas Eve which, being a Tuesday, will still feature Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias column but then he will have a week off so returning on Tuesday, January 7^th to look back over a fortnight’s worth of Festive action in one bigger article.

My Cheltenham Festival column on Thursdays (which also cover upcoming Race Previews) will move forward a day to Christmas Day morning at 10.00 a.m. (Weds) so that I can also include the best of Boxing Day’s racing as well as all the other major action before the New Year in what will be an overall preview of the Christmas period featuring Kempton, Leopardstown, Chepstow, Wetherby, Newbury and Limerick. There will be little to review outside of Ascot that very quiet week on the Cheltenham front but you can expect a few Cheltenham Festival ante-post recommendations to be going up on Christmas Day morning in anticipation of my fancies for March strengthening their claims over the festive period.

As I want to review the best of the Christmas and New Year racing altogether in one big column as always, therefore there will be a week off as usual for when I take my short, mid-season European Citybreak in the first week of January (undecided where as yet - Krakow and Antwerp currently head the betting) following a very busy period to recharge the batteries ahead of the big push towards March, so the Cheltenham columns will reconvene on Thursday, January 9^th.  

As for the weekly General Sports (Sunday Supplement) columns, they will continue as normal with no breaks at all with the Dec 29^th edition also featuring Race Previews for the best of the New Year racing.

So, the full festive schedule is as follows:

Dec 19^th: Cheltenham Festival Week 8 (7.00 p.m.) & Weekend Race Previews

Dec 22^nd: General Sports

Dec 24^th: Beating The Bias

Dec 25^th: Cheltenham Festival Week 9 (10.00 a.m.) & Christmas Week Race Previews

Dec 29^th: General Sports & New Year Race Previews

Jan 5^th: General Sports

Jan 7^th: Beating The Bias

Jan 9^th: Cheltenham Festival Week 10 (7.00 p.m.) & Weekend Race Previews