The 2024 Festival is now just a week away and there are already five odds-on favourites.
Unsurprisingly, four are trained by Willie Mullins.
They include State Man who is now just 2/5 to win the Champion Hurdle after it was confirmed yesterday that Constitution Hill would not be able to defend his crown.
Lossiemouth at 4/6 (Mares' Hurdle), El Fabiolo at 1/2 (Champion Chase) and Fact To File at 10/11 (Brown Advisory) are the other odds-on shots saddled by the Closutton maestro.
No doubt, Ballyburn will also be odds-on once his target is confirmed (currently available at Evens for both the Supreme Novices' Hurdle and Baring Bingham Novices' Hurdle).
Meanwhile, Nicky Henderson still has one hot favourite in Sir Gino, who is currently a best price of 8/11 for the Triumph Hurdle.
It is worth noting here that over the last four years, only nine of the 21 odds-on favourites at the Festival have won (43%).
In total last year, nine of the 28 Festival races were won by a favourite (three joint-favourites), down from 12 winning favourites in 2022.
Below we detail the current favourites for all of the Cheltenham races in 2024:
DAY 1 FAVOURITES
DAY 2 FAVOURITES
DAY 3 FAVOURITES
DAY 4 FAVOURITES
IRISH DOMINANCE
According to the betting markets, the Prestbury Cup between Britain and Ireland will be even less of a contest than usual this year.
Indeed, just two of the Festival races currently have favourites trained on home turf.
Those are Crebilly (Festival Plate) trained by Jonjo O'Neill and the aforementioned Sir Gino (Triumph Hurdle) trained by Nicky Henderson.
Inevitably, Willie Mullins leads the Irish charge with favourites in no less than 17 of the Festival races currently (two joint-favourites).
Meanwhile, four current favourites are trained by Gordon Elliott (one joint-favourite).
PRESTBURY CUP RESULTS
2023: Ireland - 18 wins
2022: Ireland – 18 wins
2021: Ireland – 23 wins
2020: Ireland – 17 wins
2019: Tie – 14 wins
2018: Ireland – 17 wins
2017: Ireland – 19 wins
2016: Ireland – 15 wins
2015: Great Britain – 14 wins
2014: Great Britain – 15 wins
Check out our Cheltenham Odds page for the latest betting on all the Festival races.
