The Cheltenham Festival is the biggest and best horse racing festival in the world as far as most racing punters are concerned. These are the four days of the year that those who love jumps racing really anticipate and the countdown to Cheltenham essentially starts as soon as the curtain is drawn on the preceding year’s extravaganza.
That’s certainly the case when it comes to ante post racing odds, with odds available for the four Cheltenham features 12 months in advance and sometimes even earlier. It’s not just the four big ones that attract the attention and offer early ante post odds either.
Our odds comparison shows you all the best odds for all the best races at Cheltenham, with early odds available on a host of races. If you think you know who will land any of Cheltenham’s biggest races just check out our odds comparison for the best prices. Ante post betting has its risks but it can also offer huge value and that value is even bigger if you use our odds comparison to get the best odds available on whichever horse you fancy for glory.
Cheltenham 2023 Dates and Biggest Races
The 2023 Cheltenham Festival starts on Tuesday 10th March and concludes with Gold Cup Day on Friday 19th March. The 19th will most certainly be lucky for some but what are the biggest races to bet on at the greatest festival in National Hunt racing?
Each day has a feature race that headlines the race schedule and these are:
However, in total there are a whopping 28 races over the four days, with four each day, and amazingly half of the total are at the highest Grade 1 level. That’s a staggering level of world class racing and the other Grade 1s are shown below.
In terms of the variety of racing, the Cheltenham Festival also has you covered. No matter what type of horse racing betting you like, the action from Prestbury Park doesn’t disappoint. Contests range in distance from two miles to four miles, with action over hurdles, fences, cross country and even a National Hunt flat race. There are amateur jockeys, conditional jockeys and a mixed of big and small field events too.
Betting on the Cheltenham Festival
As we have touched on, it is never really too early to start planning your Cheltenham betting. Whilst lots of the best racing betting sites have offers in the build up to the festival in March, some start their promotions and prize draws long before.
If you like ante post betting then “Non-Runner No Bet”, sometimes called NRNB, is a great offer to look out for. This allows you to place an ante post bet without the risk of losing your stake if your pick doesn’t make it to post. Eventually most of the best racing bookmakers will have this promo, at least for the biggest races, but the very best of the best start offering NRNB a month or even more before the racing commences.
When it comes to picking your bets for Cheltenham there are no shortage of trials and prep races to look out for ahead of the festival itself. Of course, form in autumn and mid-winter doesn’t always translate to a good run in mid-March, so looking out for horses that have performed better as things just start to warm up and dry out can also be a good betting tactic.
As ever, course form is important and this is especially the case at Cheltenham. The famous Cheltenham roar, which is now almost a four-day long expression of excitement and racing fervour, as opposed to simply something that marks the start of the opening race, can be off-putting to some horses. The scale and volume of the crowds are not something these horses will experience every week and so knowing that your pick can handle the occasion is certainly a big tick.
There are plenty of tips to be found for these huge races, with even mainstream media outlets covering the likes of the Gold Cup in great depth. However, tipping is no easy game – if it was the bookies certainly wouldn’t last too long.
But one way to absolutely guarantee you get the best available value on any given horse, in any race – at Cheltenham and beyond – is to use our racing odds comparison. This makes getting the best betting odds on whichever horse you fancy quick, easy and hassle-free. Bigger odds means bigger value and bigger value is the only sure-fire way to improve your overall long term results when it comes to horse racing betting.
2019 Cheltenham Review
The 2019 Festival was a real cracker, perhaps made even more brilliant by the slight fears in the build-up that the whole thing may be called off due to a minor outbreak of equine flu in the weeks leading up to it. Thankfully nothing came of that and, as ever, we had four stunning days of racing.
There were many highlights but the best of the lot for many was Bryony Frost’s brilliant ride in the Ryanair Chase. The Ryanair is almost an unofficial fifth feature race and Frost’s win, with her beloved Frodon making all the running, was the first Grade One win at the Festival over jumps by a female rider. Her post-race comments charmed the nation even further.
There were numerous other highlights, with Altior landing a fourth Festival win and Willie Mullins taking his tally to 65 Festival winners, just keeping ahead of Nicky Henderson (64) as both men once again enjoyed four great days in the Cotswolds. Mullins also landed his first Gold Cup winner as Al Boum Photo took the victory.
However, even better than that was another horse landing a fourth Festival win, Tiger Roll. In the light of his subsequent Grand National defence his romp in the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase looks even more historic but it truly was a scintillating performance. Tiger Roll made it look so, so easy, destroying the field by 22 lengths. More of the same in 2023 please!