Welcome to our Cheltenham Festival betting guide for 2024.
We hope the information below will prove helpful and insightful and provide useful tips on how to bet at Cheltenham.
As well as providing a brief background to, and history of, the meeting, we will preview the leading “shoulder” races on each of the four days before we focus on the four Championship races.
Intro
The Cheltenham Festival is an annual four-day race meeting in the heart of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire. This year the action runs from Tuesday 12th to Friday 15th March. It is without question the most eagerly awaited week of the year for horse racing fans and bettors and is one of the great weeks in the sporting calendar.
Spread evenly across the four days are twenty-eight races including no fewer than thirteen Grade One events culminating in the Blue Riband event: The Cheltenham Gold Cup on the final day.
Over the four days it is likely that over 250,000 people will be in attendance although the crowd is now capped at 68,500 per day.
The racing sees the best of Britain lock horns with the crème of Ireland, there is little European or international representation although we do have a well touted French raider in the Stayers’ Hurdle on Thursday.
Since 2014 Britain and Ireland have competed for the Prestbury Cup, named after the nearest local village to the track, with the Cup going to the leading nation over the four days.
Ireland currently holds a 7-2 lead, 2019 was tied 14-14, and the Trophy has gone back across the Irish Sea for the last four years with both 2022 and 2023 seeing comfortable 18-10 Irish wins.
Cheltenham 2024 Day One
The opening day sees no less than four Grade One races beginning with the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle over the minimum trip of two miles. A Novice event is a race for horses who have not won a race in that discipline – either over hurdles or fences – before the start of the current season.
The Cheltenham betting for the 2024 Skybet Supreme Novice Hurdle is headed by the Nicky Henderson trained Jeriko Du Reponet who is unbeaten in his two starts over hurdles.
The evergreen Lambourn trainer has won this corresponding race five times previously including with such equine greats as Altior in 2016, Shishkin in 2020 and the current Champion Hurdler Constitution Hill in 2022.
Legendary Irish trainer Willie Mullins has trained the winner of the Festival curtain-raiser a record seven times and the race went back across the Irish Sea last year when Marine Nationale was a brilliant winner for the small stable of Barry Connell.
Marine Nationale has only raced once since that fluent Cheltenham win, but he is the favourite in the Cheltenham betting for the Arkle Trophy, the second race on the Tuesday card.
The Arkle Chase is another Novice race over the minimum distance of two miles for horses who have not won a steeplechase before the start of the current season. Marine Nationale is unbeaten in his six starts and is a best price of just Evens for the Arkle, such is his reputation and the manner of his chase debut win at Leopardstown over Christmas when he looked a natural over the larger obstacles. His prep race for Cheltenham is likely to be in the Irish Arkle at the beginning of February.
The Festival Handicap Chase is the big betting race on the opening day of Cheltenham 2024 and the race has been won by Corach Rambler for the last two years. Corach Rambler is trained in Scotland by Lucinda Russell and went on from Cheltenham last year to win the greatest race of all the 2023 Grand National at Aintree.
Corach Rambler might be back for an unprecedented hat-trick of wins in March although connections are also mulling over a crack at the Gold Cup on the final day of the Cheltenham Festival 2024.
The other Grade 1 contest on the opening day is the Mares’ Hurdle won in 2020 & 2023 by the former Champion Hurdle winner Honeysuckle. Honeysuckle has retired to the breeding sheds, so her crown is up for grabs and do note Mullins has saddled the winner of the corresponding race nine times since its inception in 2008.
Mullins trains the first three in the Cheltenham betting for the Mares’ Hurdle race with Lossiemouth favourite ahead of stablemates Ashroe Diamond and Gala Marceau.
Cheltenham 2024 Day 2
The second day, formerly Ladies Day but now retitled Style Wednesday for 2024, opens with the G1 Baring Bingham, more commonly known as the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, over a distance just over two-and-a-half miles. It is a race that has been monopolised in recent years by Ireland given the prize has gone across the Irish Sea nine times in the last decade.
The Cheltenham betting is headed by the Mullins’ trained Ballyburn although we will know more about the strength and the batting order of the Irish challenge after the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown on the 3rd & 4th February.
The home challenge is likely to be led by Gidleigh Park who is unbeaten in three starts for Harry Fry, but you must go back to Ben Pauling’s Willoughby Court back in 2017 for the last British trained winner of the race.
The big betting race of the day is the Coral Cup, a handicap hurdle over 2m 5f. No horse has won the race on more than one occasion although history could be made with Dan Skelton likely to target the race with the 2023 winner Langer Dan who heads the Cheltenham Coral Cup betting at 12/1.
Cheltenham 2024 Day 3
St Patrick’s Thursday begins with the Turners Novices’ Chase, a race won in recent years by Bob Olinger in 2022, following the dramatic last fence fall of Galopin Des Champs, and Stage Star, winner of the Paddy Power Gold Cup back at the track in November, twelve months ago.
The race is a relatively new introduction to the Cheltenham Festival and the Irish have won nine of the thirteen previous renewals of this G1 2m 5f contest. Willie Mullins has saddled the winner on four occasions, and he is likely to saddle Gaelic Warrior the short-priced favourite for the race even though he continues to jump right at his fences. His class could easily win the day, but he is likely to lose ground at his obstacles as he edges right at his fences.
Allaho missed the Ryanair Chase last year having won the corresponding race for the two previous years and is likely to be another Mullins’ trained banker for many. He has not quite been at his brilliant best in his two starts so far this season having been off the track for over five hundred days prior to his comeback run at Clonmel back in November.
The return to a left-handed track will suit Allaho, however, and you right him off at your peril. There has not been a 10-year-old winner of the race since Alberta’s Run back in 2011, but his Festival record reads 3-3-1-1 and he looks the one to beat.
The Pertemps Handicap Hurdle is one of three ultra-competitive handicaps on the card and the bookies will be hoping and praying that St Patrick’s Day at the Cheltenham Festival is not the Irish benefit it often is!
Cheltenham 2024 Day 4
The G1 JCB Triumph Hurdle for 4-year-olds only will, as ever, open the card on Gold Cup Day over two miles and eight flights of hurdles. Only four winners of the race – the last Katchit in 2007 – have gone on to win the Champion Hurdle although the race was also the first of no less than five Cheltenham Festival wins for the legendary subsequent dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll back in 2014.
I am quite sweet on the chance of Burdett Road who runs in the famous colours of the Gredley family but will represent the little-known trainer, James Owen. I have been extolling the virtues of Owen for some time now, but this is the acid test.
Burdett Road was a winner at Royal Ascot back in June and has transferred his form from the flat to jumps winning his two starts over obstacles in the manner of a very exciting juvenile.
The County Hurdle is one of the big Cheltenham betting races of the week and two stables, surprisingly perhaps, have dominated this two-mile handicap in recent years with Mullins, who else, and Dan Skelton sharing eight of the last nine renewals.
The Cheltenham Festival finale is the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle for conditional jockeys over a trip in excess of two-and-a-half miles named in honour of the great former handler who revolutionised the training profession.
Pipe was a fifteen-time Champion trainer and had thirty-four victories at the Cheltenham Festival. His son David is a successful trainer in his own right but has never won the race named in honour of his father; could this be the year?
Champion Hurdle 2024
The Unibet sponsored Champion Hurdle is the highlight of the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival and is the ultimate test of speed and hurdling ability over two miles and eight flights of hurdles.
The race has been won by such hurdling greats as three-time winner Sea You Then (1985-87), the mighty Istabraq (1998-2000) and more recently Faugheen (2015) and the wonder mares Annie Power (2016) and the dual winner Honeysuckle (2021-22).
As good as those greats of the turf were, it is possible that the best of the lot is last year’s winner Constitution Hill who is the shortest-priced favourite of the week to follow up his nine-length romp of 2023.
Trained in Lambourn by Nicky Henderson, who has saddled the winner of the race a record nine times, the seven-year-old gelding is unbeaten under rules winning his eight starts by an aggregate of almost one hundred lengths!
He missed his comeback run due to the abandonment of Newcastle’s Fighting Fifth Hurdle at the end of November, but he showed his current wellbeing when he came home just under ten lengths clear of his rivals in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton Park on Boxing Day.
We won’t get rich at his prohibitive odds of 1/3, but he is head and shoulders above the rest who are headed by last year’s runner up State Man.
Nearer the time the bookmakers will have markets on the race as to Constitution Hill’s winning distance, such is his superiority, and I see no reason he should not again put on a show for his legion of fans.
For Frankel on the flat read Constitution Hill over hurdles. He is a once in a generation horse who could, whisper it, become the first horse to win the Champion Hurdle for four successive years if connections decide to stick to hurdles and do not make the switch to fences in the next couple of seasons.
The Champion Chase 2024
Wednesday’s feature race is the Champion Chase over two miles and thirteen fences. As with the Champion Hurdle, the race tests not just speed but a horse’s ability to jump the stiff Cheltenham Festival fences at championship pace.
There is no greater thrill in jumps racing than seeing top-class, two-mile champion chasers going down to the last fence with the race on the line, and this year promises to be a vintage renewal despite the absence of dual winner Energumene through injury.
El Fabiolo is a stablemate of Energumene, and he beat Jonbon by over five lengths in the Arkle Chase for first season chasers last year. Jonbon had previously beaten El Fabiolo at Aintree over hurdles in the spring of 2021 and connections of Jonbon appear bullish they can turn the tables in March. I do not agree.
Betting for the Champion Chase at Cheltenham sees El Fabiolo as a shade of odds on at 10/11 with Jonbon at 11/4. The pair are due to clash at Ascot at the end of January in the G1 Clarence House Chase and it would not surprise me if connections of Jonbon step up in distance if not at Cheltenham, then at Aintree for the Melling Chase the following month.
For years, the Champion Chase was the one race that had eluded Willie Mullins. He has righted that wrong in recent years courtesy of Energumene and I am confident that El Fabiolo will give the yard a third successive win in the race come March.
The Stayers’ Hurdle 2024
French trainer Arnaud Chaille-Chaille – so good they named him twice – saddled Ambobo to win a Grade 2 Novice Hurdle on Festival Trials Day in 2005 and has a leading chance with Theleme in the 3m Stayers’ Hurdle the highlight of Day three at the Cheltenham Festival.
The 7-y-old has yet to race in Britain and his ability to handle good ground, if it ever stops raining, would have to be taken on trust. He is head and shoulders above his compatriots in France, however, and had to be merely pushed out to win the Grade 1 Grand Prix d’Automne by a long looking ten lengths at Auteuil when last seen back in November.
Connections immediately nominated Cheltenham as his primary spring target, and he is priced at 9/2 in the Cheltenham betting for the feature race.
The prize has crossed the Irish Sea in each of the last three years and the Emerald Isle has a strong hand as they bid to continue the sequence on St Patrick’s Day.
Teahupoo finished third in the race 12 months ago and trainer Gordon Elliot has suggested last month’s Hatton’s Grace winner will head straight to Cheltenham as he has such a good record when fresh.
At a bigger price – best odds of 14/1 in the Stayers’ Hurdle betting – Sir Gerhard is worth more than a second glance. He has yet to win beyond 2m 5f and his stamina must be taken on trust, but Mullins suggested that he would go down the Stayers’ route when the dual Festival winner won at Punchestown at New Year reverting to hurdles for the first time since April 2022.
The Cheltenham Gold Cup 2024
The Blue Riband event of the Cheltenham Festival is the Gold Cup run over three-and-a-quarter miles over twenty-two fences.
The race has been won by some of the chasing greats from Golden Miller with a record five wins in the 1930s, the incomparable Arkle with a hat-trick in the 1960’s, the brilliant grey Desert Orchid in 1989 and Kauto Star who won the prize in 2007, finished runner up to his stablemate Denman in 2008 before regaining his crown the following year.
The last horse to win the race back-to-back was Al Boum Photo trained by Willie Mullins and I think his brilliant 2023 winner Galopin Des Champs will double up in March after the champ bounced back from a couple of defeats with a sensational performance in the Savills Chase when he thrashed his market rival Gerri Colombe by no fewer than 23 lengths.
There has only been one British trained winner of the race since 2015 and Shishkin at 10/1 is the shortest price of the home challenge in the Cheltenham Gold Cup betting. I am a fully paid-up member of the Shiskin fan club, but I have never considered him a future Gold Cup winner.
Galopin Des Champs is a top price of 6/5 in the Cheltenham betting and fellow Irish raider Fastorslow beat him at Punchestown last spring and on his reappearance at the beginning of December. He is an excellent yardstick and a credit to connections, but Galopin Des Champs is a superstar; pure and simple.
New markets and ways to bet on the Cheltenham Festival
Prior to the start of the meeting we will also be able to bet on markets on such things as top jockey/top trainer/winning distances/winner of the Prestbury Cup etc although it does look a formality that Willie Mullins stable jockey Paul Townend will again be top jockey and Mullins top trainer such is the strength in depth at their fingertips at Closutton.
Constitution Hill is a very short price in the Champion Hurdle betting (best price 1/3) but in recent years the bookmakers have introduced markets so that you can now bet on how far you think a horse will win by.
Thus, if you think Constitution Hill will win by ten lengths or more there will be prices available from the 48-hour declaration stage – remember he won by nine lengths in 2023! You can also bet for Constitution Hill not to win if you think there will be a huge shock.
Win and each way betting remains the staple diet of the Cheltenham Festival but the layers and oddsmakers have had to move with the times and meet the needs of its growing customer base.
Summary
The Cheltenham Festival is the best four-day race meeting in the world. We hope the above has whet your appetite for the highs and lows and thrills and spills of the action to come.
It really is the greatest show on turf.
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By Charlie McCann
