Best Horse Racing Betting Sites – Bet on Horse Racing in 2026
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Remove the favourite. Find the winner. Betting Without the Favourite is a market that strips the shortest-priced runner from the equation and re-prices the remaining field. At Cheltenham, where favourites lose approximately 70% of the time based on a 29.2% win rate since 2000, the BWOTF market offers a genuinely different betting proposition — one that lets you engage with the race without taking a position on the most obvious contender.
The market is niche, underused, and misunderstood by most punters. But in the right race on the right day, it provides a cleaner expression of your form analysis than the standard win market, where the favourite’s presence distorts the prices of every other runner. This is not contrarian for the sake of it. It is a structured way to bet when you believe the race behind the favourite is more competitive than the headline market suggests.
How the BWOTF Market Works
The mechanics are straightforward. The bookmaker identifies the favourite in a race and removes it from the BWOTF market entirely. The remaining runners are re-priced to reflect a field without the excluded horse. If the favourite was 2/1 in the standard win market, the second favourite might have been 5/1 — but in the BWOTF market, that same horse might be priced at 3/1 or 7/2, reflecting its improved chance of winning with the main rival removed.
Your bet settles on the result of the BWOTF market, not the actual race result. If the favourite wins the race, your BWOTF bet pays out on whichever horse finishes first among the remaining runners. In practice, this means the second past the post becomes the BWOTF winner. If the favourite does not win, the actual race winner is also the BWOTF winner, and the market settles identically to a standard win bet.
BWOTF is a win-only market — there are no each-way terms. It is offered by most major UK bookmakers on selected races, typically the higher-profile events with clear favourites. At Cheltenham, you can expect BWOTF markets to be available on all four championship races and most of the other Grade 1 events. Availability on handicaps is less consistent, because handicap favourites are often at longer prices (8/1 or more) where removing them has less impact on the remaining field’s pricing.
One important detail: the favourite is determined at the time you place the bet. If the favourite changes between when you place your BWOTF bet and when the race starts, the excluded horse may differ from what you expected. Some bookmakers exclude the favourite at the time of bet placement; others exclude the SP favourite. Check the specific terms before betting.
When Betting Without the Favourite Makes Sense
BWOTF is most valuable in races with a strong, short-priced favourite where you believe the race behind that horse is genuinely competitive. The ideal scenario is a championship race — Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Stayers’ Hurdle — where a dominant favourite at odds-on or short odds compresses the prices of every other runner in the standard market.
Consider a hypothetical Gold Cup where the favourite is 4/6. In the standard win market, the second favourite might be 5/1, the third favourite 8/1. Those prices reflect not just each horse’s chance of winning but the dominant probability absorbed by the favourite. In the BWOTF market, with the 4/6 shot removed, those same horses might be priced at 7/4 and 3/1 — fundamentally different odds that change the value calculation entirely. If you believe the second favourite has a genuine 25% chance of winning the race (with the favourite included), but the standard market offers 5/1 (16.7% implied), the standard price is not value. The BWOTF price of 7/4 (36% implied) might be closer to your assessment of its chance with the favourite removed — making the market a better fit for your view.
The day-by-day dynamics at Cheltenham influence when BWOTF is most useful. Day 1 produces a 37% favourite win rate — the highest of the week — which means the BWOTF market on Tuesday is most likely to settle on a different horse than the actual winner. By contrast, Gold Cup Day on Friday is historically the worst for favourites, meaning BWOTF bets on Friday are more likely to settle on the actual race winner (because the favourite loses more often). If you are using BWOTF to target the race behind a strong favourite, Friday’s card offers the highest probability that the favourite will indeed lose and your BWOTF selection will also be the real winner.
BWOTF makes less sense in handicaps. When the favourite is already 6/1 or 8/1, removing it barely changes the remaining prices. The market recalibration is marginal, and you are better off simply backing your selection in the standard win or each-way market where the terms are more flexible. BWOTF is a tool for races with pronounced market leaders, not for competitive handicaps where the field is already closely matched.
The Pattern Behind BWOTF Success
The historical record at Cheltenham reveals a consistent pattern: in races where odds-on favourites are beaten, the BWOTF winner frequently comes from the next tier of the market rather than from the outsiders. This makes intuitive sense — the horses priced second and third favourite are typically the best of the rest, and when the dominant horse underperforms, one of them usually steps forward.
The Champion Hurdle provides instructive examples. In years where the favourite has been beaten — and it happens more often than the short prices suggest — the winner almost always came from the top four in the market. The race’s Grade 1 status and relatively small field mean that genuine outsiders rarely win, making the BWOTF market a more focused version of the standard win market rather than a completely different betting proposition.
The Gold Cup shows a different dynamic. Friday’s volatility means that outsiders do occasionally win the Gold Cup, and the BWOTF market in those years settles at bigger prices than the championship hurdle events. For BWOTF punters, the Gold Cup is the race where the biggest returns are possible — but also where the market is hardest to read, because the absence of the favourite does not necessarily make the race any more predictable.
A practical framework for using BWOTF at Cheltenham: target one or two championship races per festival where the favourite is 6/4 or shorter, where you have a strong view on which horse is the most likely to win without the favourite, and where the BWOTF price on that selection represents better value than the standard market. Do not use BWOTF as a lazy way to avoid assessing the favourite — it is a tool for punters who have already concluded that the favourite is likely to be difficult to oppose in the standard market but who still want to have a bet on the race.
An Extra Market, Not an Extra Budget
BWOTF is an additional market, not a replacement for disciplined betting. The temptation to use it as a way to bet on every race — even those where you have no strong view — should be resisted. Include BWOTF bets within your overall festival budget, not on top of it. If you need support, BeGambleAware is available on 0808 8020 133.