Cheltenham Festival: Spot Plays for Friday, March 14

Friday is closing day at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival. The seven-race program caps off four days of top-tier steeplechase action, and it brings several opportunities to chase value before the lights go out.

I’ve got a few spot plays, as I have for each of the prior cards. It’s the same sort of story: These races are complicated, but with the big fields and square prices, you only need to be right once in order to have a winning day. Here are the horses to watch on the final Cheltenham card of this year’s festival.

Race #2: #10 McLaurey (6-1 ML)

This 2 1/8-mile event drew a field of 16, and I’m a fan of a runner looking for his third consecutive win. That’s McLaurey, whose form looks much, much better if you simply draw a line through his clunker last March at Fairyhouse. Do that, and you’re left with a horse that’s never finished worse than third in five starts over fences.

In his last outing, he won a rich handicap race at Leopardstown over 17 rivals, and he did so while overcoming a mistake. He does pick up some weight from that win, but he still gets in relatively light. He’ll carry 152 pounds in this spot, which means he gets up to 16 pounds from his foes (per the conditions of this race, the highest impost is 168 pounds).

Expect McLaurey to be sitting just off the pace in the early going. That trip could give him first run when the real running starts, and given his recent form, I think that could make him tough to beat.

Race #4: #11 Jet Blue (8-1 ML)

This is the Group 1 Albert Barlett Novices’ Hurdle, and there seems to be a lot of early speed signed on in this three-mile event. With that in mind, I think the likely race shape certainly favors closers, and this is the one I’m most interested in.

Jet Blue’s last start came at this route against Group 2 foes in December. He won by more than six lengths that day, and the running style he used could prove very effective here. He rated well behind the leaders before coming with a sweeping move and pulling away late. The faster they go early, the better his chances figure to be, and I think the pace will be a fast one.

Jet Blue does take a step up in class here, but he’s consistently shown his quality going back to his days on the flat. He won a Group 3 at Saint-Cloud last spring and placed in two other similar races, and I think he’s got a big chance at Group 1 glory on Friday.

Race #7: #13 Nurse Susan (30-1 ML)

I’ll preface this by saying this is strictly a value play. I have a great deal of respect for the finale’s likely favorite, #2 Wodhooh (4-1 ML). She’s logical, and it would be far from surprising if she notched her sixth consecutive win in the final race of the festival.

However, Nurse Susan hits me as too big a price at anywhere close to her morning line odds. She’s won two in a row, including a race at this very route of ground, and a repeat of either of those efforts would give her a chance to do damage here. The catch is that she hasn’t run since January of 2024, so she’s been off for more than a year.

It’s very possible she needs a race. However, what if she’s ready? If she runs the type of race we’ve seen from her in the past, she could absolutely win this race. Add in that she carries 154 pounds and gets significant weight from some of the top contenders (eight from Wodhooh, for one), and I think there’s a lot to like at a big price.