Bet on the Queen Mother Champion Chase with totesport

The two-mile steeplechasing championship race and the centrepiece of the second day of the Cheltenham Festival, the Queen Mother Champion Chase is a real favourite among totesport punters.

With usually a small select field, it is an exciting challenge to identify one with the class to win or be placed in this famous race which has a rich history of producing high-class winners.

The race was first run in 1959 to honour the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the most significant royal patron of National Hunt racing.

The undulating Prestbury Park circuit and the testing fences, jumped both on the incline and downhill, place the athleticism of runners at a premium. Only the highest quality two-milers can rise to the challenge which can be made even more difficult if the ground dries out and becomes rattling fast, or if the heavens open and provides bog-like underfoot conditions.

Of the great horses to have risen successfully to the Champion Chase challenge, only the great Badsworth Boy, trained by Michael Dickinson, managed to win the race three times between 1983-85. Other fine chasers to have triumphed twice include, Fortria, Hilly Way, Pearlyman, Barnbrook Again, Viking Flagship and Moscow Flyer.

Favourites have won three of the past ten runnings and there has only been one double-digit long-shot in that time when Newmill prevailed at odds of 16/1 in 2006 and paid £22.90 for a Tote win.

The 2007 renewal fell to Voy Por Ustedes, trained by Alan King, at just six-years-old the joint youngest horse ever to have won the race. Granted good health and a trouble-free preparation, there will be many punters prepared to wager that King’s gelding can follow up, having shown tremendous tenacity to overcome the more experienced Dempsey by a length-and-a-half.

Voy Por Ustedes is unbeaten in two visits to the Cheltenham festival, having won the Arkle Trophy, the two mile novice chasing championship the year before, and there will be plenty of ante-post punters with totesport, watching carefully to see how he progresses through the season.

Champion trainer Paul Nicholls and leading Irish handler Jessica Harrington have both landed the race twice in the last 10 years and their representatives are always worth a second glance in the betting list at this meeting, and in this race in particular.

Totesport offer ante-post odds on the Queen Mother Champion Chase and on the other feature events of the four-day Cheltenham fixture, as well as a comprehensive range of standard and specialist bets on, and leading up to the day of the big race itself.