The Festival Plate – often referred to as just the Festival Plate or its registered name, the Mildmay of Flete Challenge Cup – takes place on the third day of the Cheltenham Festival – St Patrick’s Thursday – and follows the World Hurdle, which is the feature race of the day. Here we bring you the latest betting tips, predictions and analysis to help you pick your bets for this two mile, five furlong handicap chase. We also have the best odds from some of the top bookies in the business, and they are updated in real time to ensure you get the best value possible.
Siruh Du Lac, Simply The Betts and The Shunter are the recent winners of the Paddy Power Festival Plate, with the 2023 Cheltenham betting sites making this a typically wide open affair. The majority of runners will be trading at a double figure price which means that you can often make a profit simply by landing the place part of your each-way bet.
Noble Yeats is the market leader with a number of Cheltenham bookies and the seven-year-old will be saddled by Emmet Mullins, with the horse having ran an underwhelming performance when finishing well down the order despite being sent off at betting odds of 13/2.
Simply The Betts was the 2020 Festival Plate winner and our Cheltenham tip is to always consider the runners that have course and distance form. A runner-up performance in the Paddy Power New Year's Day Handicap Chase at odds of 17/2 suggests that the horse is in decent nick, with Harry Cobden giving the Paul Nicholls-trained charge a very handy spin.
The horse also won the Brown Advisory & Merriebelle Stable Plate Handicap Chase in 2020, so the runner is actually bidding for a Festival hat-trick, while Fusil Raffles is an interesting charge and the seven-year-old has previously run well at the Cheltenham Festival. The horse was only three lengths behind Chantry House in the Marsh Novices’ Chase and there have been some other encouraging performances. Daryl Jacob also rode Fusil Raffles to a winning performance in the bet365 Charlie Hall Chase and there was then a fourth-placed finish in the Racing Post Gold Cup Handicap Chase.