I’m sure Jonjo wasn’t too disappointed that Wellington Arch got balloted out of the Coral (MGM) Cup on Wednesday.
Instead he went for a Cl3 at Uttoxeter on Saturday, won convincingly to collect nearly £8k. Which is more than he’d have got for coming fourth in that hugely-more-competitive Cheltenham race.
Similar with Derham’s Teddy Blue, who won a seven-runner Cl2 20F handicap chase (winner £31k) at Kempton on Saturday, rather than go to the Plate on Tuesday, for which he’d have won the same £31k for finishing second to handicap blot Madara.
And I suspect that the Kempton race took a lot less out of Teddy Blue than it would have taken on Tuesday amongst the Festival hubbub.
OK, there’s not the glory of being at Cheltenham, but if you want to find the owner prize money with handicappers, then avoiding the oversubscribed and super-competitive Festival races is obvious.