The Festival is now just a week away and there are currently four odds-on favourites:
Honeysuckle (4/7 Champion Hurdle), Galopin Des Champs (5/6 Brown Advisory Novicesโ Chase), Shishkin (4/6 Champion Chase) and Allaho (4/6 Ryanair Chase).
Willie Mullins has yet to commit Galopin Des Champs, but indicated his target is likely the shorter Turners Novices' Chase, for which he is currently 5/4 joint-favourite.
Last year eight of the 28 Festival races were won by the favourite, with a further eight favourites finishing second, four in third and two more in fourth.
Of the remaining six favourites, two fell - including Envoi Allen at just 4/9 for the Marsh Novices' Chase.
He was one of four beaten odds-on favourites.
The others were Concertista (second in the Mares' Hurdle), Kilcruit (second in the Bumper), both at 10/11, plus Chacun Pour Soi (third in the Champion Chase) at 8/13.
Three odds-on favourites did win, the shortest of which was Monkfish at 1/4, despite giving backers a scare at last fence in the Brown Advisory Novices' Chase:
Both Appreciate It (8/11 for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle) and Shishkin (4/9 for the Arkle Chase) also obliged.
That was better than a year earlier when only one of the six odds-on favourites won at the 2020 Festival - Envoi Allen at 4/7 in the Ballymore Novicesโ Hurdle.
Benie Des Dieux (4/6), Defi Du Seuil (2/5), Tiger Roll (8/11), Carefully Selected (10/11) and Paisley Park (4/6) were all beaten.
In spite of that, just like last year, there were a total of eight winning favourites (or joint-favourites) at the Festival in 2020.
Below we detail the current favourites for all 28 Cheltenham races next week, with a flag to indicate where they are trained:
DAY 1 FAVOURITES
DAY 2 FAVOURITES
DAY 3 FAVOURITES
DAY 4 FAVOURITES
Only 7 of the 28 races currently have British-trained favourites, but that's no surprise given there were 23 Irish-trained winners last year.
Interestingly, the first three favourites are British-trained and the home team will surely need to start well to avoid another drubbing.
Last year Willie Mullins edged the Top Trainer award on countback from Henry de Bromhead - both had 6 winners.
And Mullins' currently has the favourite or joint-favourite in an astonishing 12 races this year, albeit Galopin Des Champs accounts for two of those.
His others are: Gaelic Warrior, Stattler (jf), Sir Gerhard, Facile Vega, Allaho, Brandy Love, Vauban, State Man, Billaway and Elimay (jf).
At this stage Gordon Elliott has 5 favourites: Run Wild Fred (jf), Buddy Rich, Frontal Assult, Minella Crooner and Mount Ida (jf).
That's one more than Henry de Bromhead: Honeysuckle, Telmesomethinggirl, Bob Olinger and A Plus Tard.
For Britain, only Nicky Henderson currently has more that one favourite: Constitution Hill and Shiskin.
