It's almost a year to the day since the lesser known Irish Liquidity Crisis. The day the favourite lost the first race in Cheltenham. Well a nation has returned & we want our money back!

Where does the time fly?

It’s time for the Irish invasion of the Cotswolds. It’s time for my one truly financially reckless week of the year (Christmas pales by comparison!).

The Cheltenham Festival is upon us.

By the time you read this, I will probably already be hiding behind my sofa. Occasionally peeking out at the telly. Occasionally screaming three shades of gibberish. And then finishing with a mild whimpering wail. And muttering to myself as I extinguish the evil visual messenger that “there’s always tomorrow...”.

I have attended the Cheltenham Festival, the world cup of racing, for the last number of years. On each occasion I have had a ball. And lost a small fortune. I lost my shirt. A few of them. I also lost a lovely tweed cap. That was on the one occasion that I had a long priced winner so I figured I would fling my cap into the sky in jubilation. After all that’s what they do in the movies. I never saw it again. And it was worth more than the amount I actually won on the race.

You’d think I’d have taken the hint by then wouldn’t you?

Anyway this year it’s the telly for me. I am obliged to stay on in Ireland while my friends haul themselves on planes, ships, trains, buses and car rentals. The team I am involved with in Ireland has a rather important match on Wednesday night, and I cannot be in two places at the one time.

But don’t worry, I’ll be with the horses in spirit. And this time it’s going to be different.

My research has been meticulous.

Step 1
I have emailed and texted my most learned, trusty and insightful of friends - including one who is a gambler by profession (heavens above) - asking them all for their tips, opinions, views, bankers, sure things etc. You get the idea.

And I take care to subsequently ignore all of this advice (constant failures have lead me to this strategy)

Step 2
I have pored in great detail over the dialogue from interviews, quotes, preview evenings involving all the key participants: namely the trainers, jockeys, owners, commentators, sponsors, bookies, punters. Basically everyone except the horses.

And then I have ignored them also.

Think about it.

A jockey says, “this horse has a right good chance, he’ll be there or there abouts, he has done nothing wrong”.

A pure baloney sandwich served on heaps of waffles drenched in sugary syrup.

Why would you expect a jockey, trainer, owner, punter, sponsor - or a horse if he could talk - to give an honest compelling answer to the question ‘who do you think will win the Queen Mother Champion Chase?'

They never will. What they want is a frenzy of excitement, uncertainty with a plethora of maybes and what if’s. The whole idea is to bring opinion, excitement, more bets, more money, more sponsorship, more prize money. SO it is a grand circus.

So assuming you, like me, have not one smidgen of a fractal of an iota of a clue about racing form, then why don’t you do what I did?

Past Performance is not supposed to be an indicator of future performance but nonetheless I went down that road.

A documented horse racing fan of some note is certainly known to be full of opinion. Indeed he has produced an extraordinarily comprehensive guide to this years festival and in it he shares his strategy of what horse to back, and crucially with how much.

All well and good, but, I thought to myself how good is this guy.

SO quicker than you can say ‘Google made me rich’, I Google search some of this chaps previous forays into predicting the outcomes in Cheltenham. And so I struck gold.

I cross checked his predictions of last year with the subsequent results.

Meticulously checking his stakes off against his returns, I have calculated that our young Einstein of the Cotswolds delivered himself a return of 51%. Over 4 days.

You find me a fund manager who can deliver those kind of returns and then I’ll show you his prison cell. Returns not normally possible in what I coin the real world.

But suddenly in the world of racing green tweed this is oh so possible.

So I have my ‘manual’ printed out. 27 steps to heaven. 27 races. 4 days.

I promise to keep a meticulous account via spreadsheet of the to’ings and fro’ings of my ‘equine investment portfolio’ and next week I shall share with you the final outcome and ‘investment returns’.

They’re under starters orders...