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Cheltenham Festival Betting

Cheltenham Festival races take place during the four day Cheltenham Festival period – usually some time in March each year. This is your Cheltenham Festival betting guide.

To start with, Cheltenham Festival races offer a great deal of prize money to the horses that win them. This makes Cheltenham Festival races incredibly attractive to trainers who like the idea of generating more money from a single success than they could in several races elsewhere. It also makes riding horses in Cheltenham Festival races very appealing to jockeys who gain an enormous amount of prestige for riding winners here.

Spectators love Cheltenham Festival races because, as we have just explained, they attract the very best runners from top trainers, many of which are ridden by top jockeys. This makes Cheltenham Festival races hugely competitive and provides racing purists with a thrilling experience that is widely viewed as being the highlight of the National Hunt season.

Because Cheltenham Festival races are so highly competitive, the odds available about the runners tend to be more generous than they are at smaller and less competitive meetings. This gives horse racing bettors a chance to make more money than they might at smaller meetings, although of course it has to be said that picking winners is more of a challenge in Cheltenham Festival races.

Cheltenham Festical betting races

Several Cheltenham Festival races have become almost as famous as the Cheltenham Festival itself. These are commonly referred to a ‘feature races’ and they include the following:

Champion Hurdle – This is a Cheltenham Festival race that was first run in 1927. It is run over a distance of 2m ½f and is open to any horse aged four years or older. The first ever Champion Hurdle winner was a horse called Blaris and the most recent (2009) was Punjabi, winning at odds of 22/1. The Champion Hurdle is generally held on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival.

Queen Mother Champion Chase – This is a Cheltenham Festival race that started out in 1959 as the National Hunt Two Mile Champion Chase. It was renamed the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1980 in recognition of the late Queen Mother’s enthusiasm and support for National Hunt racing in the UK. The Queen Mother Champion Chase is usually staged on the second day of the Cheltenham Festival.

World Hurdle – This Cheltenham Festival race takes place on the third day of the festival and is run over a distance of 3m. It was first run in 1972 and has previously been known as the Spa Hurdle and the Stayers’ Hurdle. The race become known as the World Hurdle in 2005.
 
Cheltenham Gold Cup – The Cheltenham Gold Cup is the most famous of all Cheltenham Festival races and takes place on the fourth and final day of the festival. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is run over a distance of 3m 2½f. Originally, the Cheltenham Gold Cup was run over the flat, with the first race taking place in 1819. The race was first run over jumps in 1924. Today it is the most prestigious and lucrative National Hunt race of all, and one that is eagerly anticipated each year by racing enthusiasts everywhere.

Cheltenham Festival Course

The Cheltenham Festival racecourse is the place where all of the annual Cheltenham Festival racing action takes place. The Cheltenham racecourse itself is located close to Cheltenham town centre, making it easy to reach by both road and rail. Although most people refer to ‘Cheltenham Racecourse’ as a single entity, there are actually two racecourses here, and these are referred to as the Old Course and the New Course.

If you’re imagining two completely separate Cheltenham Festival racecourses then you’ve made the same mistake than many people make. The two courses are in fact superimposed on each other, so the same area of land is used by both courses with just one main deviation. This is probably why the majority of people tend to think of Cheltenham racecourse as being a single racecourse in the first place.

The big difference between the Old Course and the New Course is that the New Course requires horses to jump a fence whilst running downhill. This is just as challenging as it sounds, and more than a few horses (and jockeys) have come undone when encountering that particular aspect of Cheltenham Festival racecourse.

Both of the Cheltenham Festival Racecourses are used during the Cheltenham Festival period itself. For example, the Champion Hurdle and Queen Mother Champion Chase race are both run over the Old Course, whilst the World Hurdle and Cheltenham Gold Cup races are both run over the New Course. More details of these races can be found on our Cheltenham Festival Races page.

If you intend to visit the Cheltenham Festival racecourse during the Cheltenham Festival period then it will be worth booking your tickets in advance. This is only essential on the final day of the Cheltenham Festival, but booking tickets in advance on any of the days will ensure you can get into the Cheltenham Festival racecourse no matter busy things get. Booking in advance will also enable you to pay less for your Cheltenham Festival racecourse tickets, which means more cash in your pocket for some serious Cheltenham Festival racecourse betting!
 

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