My pores are starting to seep sweat what with this year's Cheltenham festival just three weeks away. Along with many other punters I'm starting to get giddy at the prospect of a great racing festival. The second race of this year's festival week will be the the Arkle Chase. Named after the great steeplechaser Arkle, who won the Gold Cup three years in a row, this race has seen a strong Irish representation in recent years but success has been most notable with Martin Pipe-trained winners, like Contraband and Well Chief in recent years. Run over exactly two miles, the Arkle requires both speed and good jumping technique to compete well and the recent form is often a good guide. Analysis of recent Arkle winners points towards entrants coming to Cheltenham on the back of an impressive season. Shocks in the Arkle are few and far between and the market favourites usually perform well.

The race has a clear favourite in Fair Along - the best price available has been at 11/4. This horse will lead from the front and bring the rest around at a terrifying pace, and it will be interesting to see who can challenge. As I can’t see the favourite been upstaged here, I'm going to go with Jack The Giant to give In Fact, Ah punters some each way value at 16/1. This five year old has good form coming into the race and could upset the odds if trainer Nicky Henderson chooses to run the horse.

Whilst I'm here I’d like to thank all you In Fact, Ah readers who voted for us in the Irish Blog Awards. We're up for an award in no less than three categories including Best Sports Blog, even though we allegedly only write three sport related posts a month.