Cheltenham Festival Market Movers - 30/11/21

The first big market mover from the weekends racing came on Friday in the Maiden hurdle at Newbury in which Jonbon put in a hugely impressive performance to land his hurdles debut affair by a comfortable six length margin.

Jonbon, a £570,000 purchase and full brother to the top class hurdler Douvan, was an easy 15 length winner of his Irish PTP and subsequently went on to cosily land his sole bumper start on his first run for Nicky Henderson.

He marked his debut over obstacles, on the back of a 244 day break, with a scintillating performance, travelling strongly whilst tracking the pace before being shaken up to lead and stretch clear inside the final furlong.

With such an impressive pedigree (and huge price tag) its been easy to fancy him for the coveted Supreme Novices' title without even seeing him take to jumping, however now that we've finally seen his ability over obstacles first hand, his price has been quickly slashed from 6/1 into 7/2, now sitting as favourite for the event.

Ahoy Senor sent punters into an ante-post scramble after his hugely impressive performance at Newbury on Saturday.

The highly likeable chaser made all from the front in the Grade Two John Francombe Novices' Chase, setting a seriously strong gallop and forcing all of his rivals into submission, winning by an eventual 31 length margin.

His sectional times across the last five furlongs of that event have left timekeepers in awe and its been no surprise to see his early odds for several viable Cheltenham Festival destinations take a substantial market chop.

He's been cut into a best price of 10/1 for both the Festival Novices' and National Hunt Chase, however his biggest market move has come in the Brown Advisory market which has left him as short as 7/1 at some bookmakers to take that affair, which now looks his most likely target.

Honeysuckle is an exceptional mare and boosted her unbeaten record, under all codes, to 13 without loss on Sunday with her win in the Hatton's Grace Hurdle.

Sundays outing marked her third successive win in the race and despite a lack of fluency in her opening few jumps, she prevailed with complete ease, finding a rhythm and travelling strongly to go clear before 2 out.

She was kept up to her work on her first run back in seven months and she was pushed out to maintain her eight length winning margin following a slow jump at the last.

Given the ease of her victory whilst not looking even close to her very best, its hard to disagree with punters piling in to get their bets down on what was already a slim 13/8 for her Champion Hurdle retention bid.