Short answer: don’t try to bet every race. Build a shortlist before the week starts instead. Pick the races you actually fancy looking at, run each runner through five quick checks (trainer form, proven at the track, the ground, class and rating, then the market), and keep the two or three that tick the most boxes.
That’s the whole method. The rest of this guide shows you how to do it, plus what our numbers say about the Festival along the way.
Twenty-eight races in four days is a lot to take in. A plan keeps it fun, and it keeps you in charge of the week instead of the other way round.
Here’s where we’re going:
- When the Festival is and what’s on each day
- The kinds of race you’ll meet
- The five-check shortlist, step by step
- What our data says about the Festival
- Prices and staking in Festival week
- Habits that make the week better
- Questions and answers
When is the Cheltenham Festival and what’s on?
First the basics, so we’re on the same page.
The Festival is the biggest meeting of the jumps season. It runs for four days in the middle of March, Tuesday to Friday, at Prestbury Park. Seven races a day, gates open at 10:30am, first race at 1:20pm and the last at 5:20pm. That’s 28 races in all.
Dates for the next Festival: Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March 2027.
Every day has a headline race, and you’ll know these four.
| Day | Headline race |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Champion Hurdle |
| Wednesday | Queen Mother Champion Chase |
| Thursday | Stayers’ Hurdle |
| Friday | Cheltenham Gold Cup |
Tuesday kicks off with the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and that famous Cheltenham roar as the crowd welcomes the first race of the week. Then there’s Britain against Ireland. The Prestbury Cup, which started in 2014, goes to whichever country trains the most winners over the four days. We’ll see how that’s gone in the data chapter.
What kinds of race are there?
Here’s the thing… the 28 races aren’t 28 versions of the same puzzle. They fall into a handful of types, and each one rewards a slightly different way of reading it. Knowing which type you’re looking at is step one in deciding how much time to give it.
Championship races. The best horses in each division, usually in smaller fields. The form is deep and everyone knows it, so the market has done a lot of the work already. They’re brilliant to watch, and a good place to practise the checks below because the information is easy to find.
Novice hurdles and chases. These are for horses with limited experience over the obstacles, so the story is usually improvement. A horse can look completely different from one run to the next, so how it won matters more than the fact that it won. Trainers’ records with young jumpers count for a lot here.
Handicaps. Big fields, with the weights set so that every runner has a chance. They’re some of the most competitive races of the week, which is why a shortlist suits them better than a single pick. Our guide to festival betting shows you how to tackle them.
The bumper. A flat race for young horses under jump rules, and for many of them there’s no form to read. Our guide to what a bumper is walks you through how to read one using the trainer, the breeding and the market.
Cross country. Different course, different style of fences. If it’s new to you, watching and learning is a perfectly good plan.
Hurdles and chases differ too. Fences ask different questions of a horse than hurdles do, and our guide to chase betting shows you how the market behaves over the bigger obstacles.
How do you build a Cheltenham Festival shortlist?
Here’s the method, and it’s simple on purpose.
For each race you plan to look at, write down the runners. Then give each one a tick or a cross on five checks. Keep the runners with the most ticks, and be happy to leave the race alone if nothing stands out. Once you’ve done it a few times it takes about ten minutes a race.
The checks are a quick way to shrink a big field, so your attention goes to the runners that have earned it. Finding the winner is still down to you and the racing.
Check one: trainer form
Some yards are flying going into March… and some are a bit quieter. Have a look at how the yard has been running over the last couple of weeks, and how it does with this type of race.
The famous Festival names are known to everyone, so their reputation is already in the price. The better question is whether the yard is in good order right now, and whether this horse has been put in the right race.
Our guide to trainer festival form shows you how to read a yard around the big meetings, and trainer statistics explains how to narrow a yard down by class, ground and time of year.
Check two: proven at the track
Cheltenham is a stiff, undulating track with a famous hill, and then the Festival adds the noise. A horse that has already run well there has shown it can handle the place. A horse that hasn’t might still be very good, so the question is simply whether it has shown it can cope.
Course and distance form is covered in our guide to course and distance winners, and the figures for the Festival itself are in the data chapter below.
Check three: the ground
Ground changes how a race is run. Read the going report from the course each morning, because it can move through the week with rain and watering. Then look at what each horse has done on similar ground. Soft or heavy rewards stamina, and quicker ground suits a different type. Our guide to how weather affects racing explains what the going really does.
We tested chase handicaps on soft ground and no single simple clue stood out on its own. That’s handy to know… the going works best as one of the five checks, a way to sort the runners alongside the others, and not as a shortcut.
Check four: class and rating
Most Festival races sit at the top of the class ladder, so the question is how each horse compares with the rest. Official ratings and our own ratings are two ways to look at it. A horse that has run to a high figure in comparable company deserves a look, and one that has never got close to the level needed can go on the cross pile.
Our guide to official ratings explains what they tell you, and combining ratings shows you how to use more than one.
Check five: the market
The market is just the prices on offer on the day, and it’s a handy thing to hold your own view up against. Where it agrees with your checks on a runner, that’s one more tick. Where it doesn’t, it’s worth a second look at your reasoning. Either way, the case for a runner is yours, and the market is the last thing you compare it with.
Prices have a second job too. A runner can be a real contender and still be priced exactly for it, so the last question on every shortlist is whether the price on offer is a fair reward for the chance. Our guide to the A/E ratio shows you how to measure that. In short, A/E is the winners we actually saw divided by the winners the prices expected, so 1.00 means the market got it about right.
Putting the five checks together
Say a race has fourteen runners. Five checks across fourteen horses sounds like seventy little decisions, but most of them take seconds. Within a few minutes the field usually separates. Three or four runners tick most of the boxes, a handful tick a few, and the rest drop away. That’s your shortlist… the race has gone from fourteen to three or four.
If the shortlist is long and nothing separates, that tells you something too. Some races, handicaps especially, are the kind where a lot of the field has a real chance. Leaving those to watch is a perfectly good result.
And if you’d like a hand with the legwork, the assistant in the right-hand panel of every race card lets you ask about any runner, trainer or jockey in plain English and answers from the data in front of you.
What does our data say about the Festival?
Right, the numbers. These cover the 13 Festivals from 2014 to 2026, which is 361 races and 5,917 runners, all priced at Betfair SP (the exchange’s closing price). Our racing data starts in July 2013, so the 2013 Festival isn’t in it. Three Festivals have 27 races instead of 28: 2014, 2015 and 2024, when the cross country race was abandoned.
All of this is Festivals that have already been run, so use it as a guide to how the week tends to go.
How does the market behave in each type of race?
| Race type | Festival races | Favourite won | Same type, ordinary races | Winner from the first three in the betting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Championship races | 52 | 40.4% | not compared | 69.2% |
| Grade 1 and 2 novice hurdles | 50 | 28.0% | 36.9% (222 races) | 52.0% |
| Grade 1 and 2 novice chases | 37 | 51.4% | 41.4% (239 races) | 78.4% |
| Handicap hurdles | 65 | 15.4% | 31.1% (14,108 races) | 30.8% |
| Handicap chases | 63 | 23.8% | 31.6% (13,937 races) | 39.7% |
| Other races | 69 | 36.2% | not compared | 63.8% |
| All Festival races | 361 | 30.7% | not compared | 54.3% |
"Ordinary races" means British turf jump races of the same type outside the Festival, from January 2014 to April 2026. The bumper (13 races) and the cross country (12 races) are too few to quote on their own, though they’re counted in the last row.
The handicaps are where the Festival feels different. A favourite won 15.4% of the Festival handicap hurdles and 23.8% of the handicap chases, against around 31% in ordinary races of the same kind. In the Grade 1 and 2 novice hurdles the favourite won 28.0%, against 36.9% elsewhere. The Grade 1 and 2 novice chases went the other way, with the favourite winning 51.4% against 41.4%, though that’s a small sample at 37 races, so take it as a pointer.
The last column shows where the winners tend to come from. In the championship races and the novice chases, the winner came from the first three in the betting in about 69% and 78% of races. In the handicap hurdles it was 31%, so the winner was often further down the market.
The prices have kept pace with all of this. I’ll use A/E again here, the same measure as above. Favourites in every race type landed between 0.85 and 1.47. With only 37 to 70 races behind each group, luck alone could easily move a figure that far from 1.00, so we’re not drawing any further conclusion. For the wider picture over British chases, our guide to chase favourites has the full numbers.
For your shortlist, that points to a simple habit. In a handicap, expect a longer shortlist and be happy to leave the race alone. In a championship race or a novice chase, the first few in the betting have done most of the winning, so a shorter list suits.
How have Britain and Ireland shared the winners?
Irish-trained horses won 219 of the 361 races, about 61%, and British-trained horses won 141. One winner, in 2020, was trained in France.
| Year | Won by British trainers | Won by Irish trainers |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 15 | 12 |
| 2015 | 14 | 13 |
| 2016 | 13 | 15 |
| 2017 | 9 | 19 |
| 2018 | 11 | 17 |
| 2019 | 14 | 14 |
| 2020 | 10 | 17 |
| 2021 | 5 | 23 |
| 2022 | 10 | 18 |
| 2023 | 10 | 18 |
| 2024 | 9 | 18 |
| 2025 | 8 | 20 |
| 2026 | 13 | 15 |
Britain won the Prestbury Cup in 2014 and 2015, the two sides tied in 2019, and Ireland has taken every other year. Each race counts for the country of the winning trainer. It’s a good reason to give Irish yards the same attention as British ones when you do the trainer check.
What do the busiest trainers’ records look like?
Strike rate here is simply the share of a yard’s runners that won.
| Trainer | Festival runners | Winners | Strike rate | A/E |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W P Mullins | 793 | 92 | 11.6% | 1.04 |
| G Elliott | 459 | 39 | 8.5% | 0.98 |
| N J Henderson | 359 | 28 | 7.8% | 0.90 |
| P F Nicholls | 269 | 17 | 6.3% | 1.00 |
| H De Bromhead | 243 | 24 | 9.9% | 1.39 |
| D Skelton | 167 | 13 | 7.8% | 1.28 |
These six yards had the most Festival runners. Each of them wins less often at the Festival than in ordinary jump races, 11.6% against 26.9% for the yard with the most runners, for example. That fits with every yard sending its best horses into the toughest races of the season.
For A/E, all six are close enough to 1.00 that luck alone could explain the gap, a little over for some and a little under for others, and most have too few winners for a single figure to be more than a rough guide. So a famous name hasn’t, on its own, meant more winners than the price expected. That matches our guide to trainer festival form. The useful question is how the yard is running now and whether this horse is in the right race.
Does it help to have won at Cheltenham before?
| Group | Runners | Winners | Strike rate | A/E |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Had won at Cheltenham before | 1,193 | 124 | 10.4% | 1.08 |
| Had not | 4,724 | 237 | 5.0% | 0.96 |
| Had won over the same distance at Cheltenham before | 882 | 94 | 10.7% | 1.07 |
| Had not | 5,035 | 267 | 5.3% | 0.98 |
| Had run at Cheltenham before | 3,443 | 231 | 6.7% | 1.02 |
| Had not | 2,474 | 130 | 5.3% | 0.96 |
Horses that had already won at Cheltenham won about twice as often as the rest, 10.4% against 5.0%. Winning over the same distance at the track gave a similar picture, 10.7% against 5.3%. Having simply run there made a smaller difference, 6.7% against 5.3%.
The prices have been close to fair for them, with an A/E of 1.08 for the course winners. So a win at the track is a good reason to take a closer look at a horse. Whether that known strength is already in the price is a separate question, and it’s the one your price check answers.
Here, "before" means runs in Britain and Ireland since July 2013. Counting only 2016 to 2026 gives almost the same result, 10.5% for horses that had won there before against 5.0% for those that hadn’t.
Does the ground change how often the favourite wins?
| Ground | Races | Favourite won | Winners from the front half of the betting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soft or heavy | 148 | 31.1% | 85.8% |
| Good to soft | 136 | 31.6% | 85.3% |
| Good | 77 | 28.6% | 84.4% |
Look at how little moves… the favourite won about 31% on soft or heavy and good to soft, and about 29% on good, and on all three about 85% of winners came from the front half of the betting. So the ground hasn’t, on its own, changed how often the market’s leaders win. Where it matters is for the individual horse, which is why check three asks what each runner has done on similar ground.
Going here is the recorded going for each race, and no Festival race in these years was recorded as good to firm or firmer.
What does it all add up to?
The Festival numbers speak to some of the five checks, not all of them. A win at the track has gone with more winners, a famous trainer’s name alone hasn’t beaten the price, the ground on its own hasn’t changed the favourite’s record, and the handicaps have been the hardest races to pin down. Class and rating aren’t tested here, and we haven’t tested the five checks as a package, so treat the method as a tidy way to organise your own reading with the numbers behind it.
How should you handle prices and staking in Festival week?
The Festival is a short, busy window. You don’t have months for results to settle, so it helps to have a simple structure before the first race.
Set aside a bank for the week. Keep it apart from your usual betting. Split it across the four days, then split each day’s share across the races you’ve picked for that day. Whatever that works out at is your stake limit for each race, and it stays put all week. Our guide to festival betting goes into it more, and stake sizing covers the thinking behind it.
Check the each-way terms. In the big handicaps the number of places and the fraction paid can differ between bookmakers, and some change their terms in Festival week. Offers move around, so read the terms on the day. Our guide to each-way value betting shows you how to judge them.
Look for the best price. Shopping around is part of the puzzle too. The same runner can be a different price in different places, and over a week those gaps add up. Getting the best price covers how to do it without spending your whole day on it.
Be happy to bet fewer races. Seven races a day is a lot, and you don’t have to be in all of them. Our guide to betting in every race explains why a few well-chosen bets suit most people better than a bet on every card.
Which habits make the week better?
A few small habits make the four days smoother, and none of them take long.
- Do the shortlist the night before. Ten minutes in the evening beats a rushed look an hour before the race.
- Choose two or three races a day. Pick the ones that suit how you read a race, the handicap you love or the novice hurdle you’ve followed all season.
- Write down why. One line on each runner on your shortlist. You’ll enjoy looking back at it.
- Note your results. A simple record shows you which types of race suit you. Our guide to tracking your bets shows a simple way to do it.
- Let each day stand on its own. Tomorrow has its own bank and its own shortlist, so every day starts fresh.
- Enjoy the racing. It’s the best week of the jumps calendar, and the plan is there to make it even better.
Cheltenham Festival questions, answered
When is the Cheltenham Festival? It’s held in the middle of March, from Tuesday to Friday. The next one runs from Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March 2027.
How many races are there? There are 28, seven on each of the four days.
What are the four headline races? The Champion Hurdle on Tuesday, the Queen Mother Champion Chase on Wednesday, the Stayers’ Hurdle on Thursday and the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday.
How do you pick contenders at the Festival? Run each runner through five checks: trainer form, proven at the track, the ground, class and rating, then the market. Keep the runners that tick the most boxes. The method is explained step by step above.
Do favourites win at the Cheltenham Festival? About 31% of the time across 361 races from 2014 to 2026. It varies by race type, from 15.4% in handicap hurdles to 51.4% in Grade 1 and 2 novice chases, and those figures describe past Festivals only.
Which country has won more races, Britain or Ireland? Irish-trained horses won 219 of the 361 races from 2014 to 2026, and British-trained horses won 141.
Do you have to bet on every race? No. Most people enjoy the week more with a shortlist for two or three races a day. Leaving a race alone is a perfectly good decision.
What is the Prestbury Cup? It’s the prize for the country, Britain or Ireland, whose trainers have the most winners across the four days. It was introduced in 2014.
Is a bumper worth looking at? It can be good fun to watch, and there’s little form to read for many of the runners. Our guide to bumpers explains what to look at instead.
What about the Grand National? That’s a different meeting with its own profile, covered in our guide to picking a Grand National winner.
Ready to give it a go?
Over to you. Pick one race, any race, on any day before March, and run the five checks on it. See how quickly the field shrinks. The practice is what makes it easy by the time the Festival arrives.
If you’d like a hand while you do it, the assistant on a race card is made for exactly that. Sign up (it’s free) or log in if you’ve already got an account, open a race card and ask it about any runner, trainer or jockey.
Sign up or log in to get started
What this guide doesn’t cover
This guide is about reading the Festival and building a shortlist. It doesn’t name horses, and it doesn’t hand you a system for backing them. The other big meetings, like the Grand National and Royal Ascot, have their own profiles and their own guides.