The Cheltenham Festival is the highlight of the year for all horse racing fans and people will be turning up to the Gloucestershire track in their thousands next month. Taking place between Tuesday 12th March and Friday 15th March, the excitement is beginning to build. Here is our ultimate guide to the four-day Festival where you can find out all you need to know. Check out our free tips page for daily content across British and Irish racing.
The first five races of each day will be broadcast live on ITV, whilst all seven races per day will be shown on Racing TV. Racing TV is available on Sky, Virgin Media and has its own online service. Irish viewers can catch all the action on Virgin Media One.
If you wish to attend the Festival in person, tickets are available through the Jockey Club Website. It’s important to note that Club Enclosure ticket’s for the Friday (Day 4) are already sold out but tickets for that area are still available for the other three days.
The atmosphere when the tapes go up for the start of the first race on Day 1 is absolutely unrivalled and there will undoubtedly be plenty of people roaring the horses on yet again this year.
2.10 Arkle Challenge Trophy Novices’ Chase
4.50 Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle
5.30 National Hunt Challenge Cup
The Champion Hurdle, which takes the 3.30 slot on Day 1 is the big race. This is where the best two-mile hurdlers take each other and attempt to go down in history.
Constitution Hill is the one they all have to beat and it’s going to be an almost impossible task to do so. He was an imperious winner last year and the second-best horse in the division couldn’t lay a glove on him.
Wednesday’s card is the second of two days to be run on Cheltenham’s old course and it’s another quality-filled day of racing.
1.30 Baring Bingham Novices’ Hurdle
2.10 Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase
2.50 Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle
3.30 Queen Mother Champion Chase
4.10 Glenfarclas Chase (Cross Country)
4.50 Grand Annual Handicap Chase
The Queen Mother Champion Chase is a fast and furious race Grade 1 over two miles and there’s simply no margin for error in the jumping department.
El Fabiolo won the Arkle in impressive style at last year’s Festival and looks well set to claim the crown in open company this time around. Awesome at Leopardstown last time out, it’ll take a very good one to get the better of him.
Thursday sees us switch to the new course and the handicaps outweigh the Grade 1 races, making it a very competitive day.
2.10 Pertemps Final Handicap Hurdle
4.10 TrustATrader Plate Handicap Chase
The Stayers’ Hurdle has historically always been considered as the ‘championship race’ of Day 3 and the division has been crying out for a horse to put it back on the map.
Irish Point isn’t guaranteed to run here, as his owner has the two most likely winners of this race. He was very impressive when upped to three miles for the first time under rules at Leopardstown over Christmas and could be exactly what the division needs.
Friday concludes the four-day extravaganza and it’s usually the most popular with racegoers, which makes it the hardest day to get tickets for!
2.50 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle
5.30 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle
Often most people’s highlight of the entire Festival, the Cheltenham Gold Cup is the most prestigious race of the week and it’s truly where legends are made.
Galopin Des Champs is the defending champion and he has bounced back from a couple of disappointing efforts since in a big way. Now looking back to his imperious best, he should prove hard to beat.
If you back any of our selections you can watch them live on the free Racing Post app or racingpost.com. Simply log in to one of your bookmaker accounts and click ‘Watch live’ on the racecards.