The Cheltenham Festival is the Olympics of jumps racings and for thousands, being at Prestbury Park in March is an annual ritual.
Played out against the backdrop of Cleeve Hill, a breathtaking natural sporting arena, it is quite simply the place where legends are made.
The 2026 Festival takes place from Tuesday 10th - Friday 13th March and promises to be one of the most compelling in years.
The Champion Hurdle looks wide open in the absence of Sir Gino, State Man and, of course, Constitution Hill.
Lossiemouth and The New Lion head the betting, while Golden Ace bids to prove last year’s success was no fluke.
The Willie Mullins-trained Majborough is odds-on favourite for the Champion Chase, but that's a race that has been a graveyard for odds-on favourites.
Fact To File aims to win back-to-back Ryanair Chase's and it will a big surprise if he does not do so, while Teahupoo looks to regain his Stayers' Hurdle crown.
Meanwhile, Friday’s Gold Cup looks mightily competitive, with Gaelic Warrior currently the marginal favourite at odds of around 7/2.
There are several British hopes in the big race this year, including The Jukebox Man, Jango Baie, Haiti Couleurs and Grey Dawning.
Every morning during the Festival, we post free race-by-race previews for the day, including our tips for all seven races.
You can also follow our Festival tips on X (Twitter) and our WhatsApp channel.
In 2025, our tips included five winners at 3/1, 7/1, 15/2, 11/1, and 25/1, plus placed selections at 40/1 and 66/1.
We also recommended a dual forecast perm on the three outsiders in the Arkle Chase – a strategy that paid out at over 60/1.
In 2024, we tipped eight winners, including selections at 10/1 and 28/1.
We also suggested perming tri-casts in the Champion Chase to cover all runners except the odds-on favourite – delivering a stunning return of nearly 12,000/1.
Meanwhile, in 2023, we tipped ten winners, including 16/1, 22/1, and 66/1 shots.
As well as our free Festival tips, you can find the latest Cheltenham Odds, plus relevant trends and statistics for all 28 races.
If you want to place a bet on the Festival, it is worth checking out all the latest bookmaker Cheltenham betting offers and free bets.
The four day meeting stages championship races in pretty much every discipline that national hunt racing has to offer, be it over hurdles, fences or even on the flat.
There are races for novices - the stars of the future - and the blue riband events that all jockeys, trainers and owners dream of winning:
When discussing the greatest horses to ever jump an obstacle, a horse that hasn’t won at the Festival won’t even get a mention.
Instead, the Festival is inextricably linked with the cream of the thoroughbred crop.
From Golden Miller, who won a record five Gold Cups, and Arkle and Best Mate who each claimed three, to triple Champion Hurdlers like Persian War, See You Then and Istabraq.
Every year reputations are made and lost at the Festival, which has served up some of the most dramatic and emotional moments of any sport.
Nobody who witnessed it will ever forget Dawn Run’s Gold Cup in 1986, when the Irish mare become the first horse to win both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup.
Or Desert Orchid’s success in the same race in 1989, finally laying his Cheltenham hoodoo to rest by adding the sport’s biggest prize to his already glittering CV.
More recently, Kauto Star and Sprinter Sacre regaining their crowns in 2009 and 2016 respectively will live long in the memory.
The Festival isn’t just about equine heroes of course - we also feature the leading Cheltenham jockeys, past and present.
Finally, there is one other ingredient that makes the Festival so special - the crowd.
The phrase “The Roar” is synonymous with the wall of noise that erupts from the stands when the tapes go up for the traditional curtain raiser, the Supreme Novices' Hurdle.
It's a roar that tells the world the 12 month wait for the best four days in sport is finally over.
When analysing form ahead of any Cheltenham Festival race few individual factors seem to be more significant than course form.
The importance of the ability to perform at Cheltenham in general and at the Festival, in particular, are hard to overstate. It is remarkable how many horses save their best form for this track and how many seem to relish returning to the Festival each year.
There are actually two separate tracks at Cheltenham, plus a Cross Country Course set out in the middle of Prestbury Park.
The Old Course is used on Tuesday and Wednesday, with fresh ground on the New Course preserved for Thursday and Friday.
So how do the two circuits differ and what qualities does a horse need to excel on either?
The first thing to note is that the Old Course is a sharper track.
Lots of people talk about needing stamina to win at Cheltenham given the hill that runners have to climb on the run to the line.
But horses also need a certain amount of speed because on the Old Course, over shorter trips like two miles in particular, the runners are always on the turn meaning that it is very hard to hold a position if you are on a horse that isn’t travelling.
It is also hard to regain track position if you lose it, so a combination of speed and balance is very important.
This is further emphasised by the steep run downhill that confronts the field as it turns out of the back straight - if your rivals start to get away from you at this point it is very hard to reel them in and make up the lost ground.
Balance is also needed to safely negotiate the obstacles.
The second last fence, in particular, can catch horses out as it comes at a point in the race when horses are starting to tire. It also comes quickly after the final bend and has changed the course of many big races over the years.
Another trappy area is the run of three fences down the back straight that includes two open ditches, with a plain fence sandwiched in between. Miss the first ditch and you can easily fluff all three and lose the race, even though it is still a long way home from here.
The New Course is more of a staying circuit with jockeys generally having a bit more time to organise their mounts during races here.
So it is crucial to be on a strong stayer, but you need a good jumper too as there are some tricky obstacles to negotiate over both hurdles and fences.
On the hurdles course, the first flight down the back straight can catch horses out as they tend to start freewheeling after turning downhill away from the grandstands.
Equally, the second last is also taken downhill, with the ground starting to rise shortly afterwards and the change in levels can see horses lose their footing, even if they jump this flight cleanly.
Over fences, after you have turned out of the back straight the next fence is taken on the hill, which can unbalance even the most surefooted of jumpers.
Whichever course you race on, one thing that they both have in common is the uphill climb to the line.
This is where history is made, dreams are realised and shattered, and fortunes are won and lost.
One thing is for certain, however well the previous 90% of the race has gone, it will all be for nothing unless your horse has the heart to overcome this final test.
The third course at Cheltenham is the most unique.
Introduced in 1985 to coincide with the start of Sunday racing, the Cross Country Course is a combination of twists and turns on the flat, and bespoke obstacles to be jumped.
Those obstacles comprise banks, ditches and rails, as well as the most spectacular of them all - the cheese wedges.
The course was originally designed by Mike Etherington-Smith, who also designed the 3 day event course for the Sydney Olympics.
However, since its inception, the course has been modified on a number of occasions. For example, the cheese wedges were added in 2009.
In addition, changes were also made after a controversial Cross Country Chase in November 2008, where jockey Davy Russell took a legal shortcut that didn’t follow the normal racing line.
Unlike normal steeplechase fences, which are constructed from ‘dead’ materials, the fences are living, growing trees, shrubs and bushes, which have to be trimmed for racing.
The course is the only one of its kind in the UK, although similar style races are run every year at the likes of Punchestown in Ireland and Pau in France.
