Gordon Elliott had to wait until the very last race of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival to get on the scoreboard. Wodhooh’s victory in the Martin Pipe at 9/2 saved an otherwise frustrating week, but one winner from a yard that had 30-plus runners felt like underperformance from a man with 41 Festival victories to his name.
Four weeks out from the 2026 renewal, the mood at Cullentra House is markedly different.
The Elliott Festival Record
The raw numbers tell the story of a trainer who belongs in Cheltenham’s top tier. From 469 Festival runners in our SmartForm database, Elliott has produced 41 winners — a strike rate of 8.7%. That rises to 27.3% for placed horses (128 from 469).
But dig into the recent trend and you see the frustration. After a purple patch that included Teahupoo landing the Stayers’ Hurdle at 5/4 and Stellar Story springing a 33/1 Albert Bartlett shock in 2024, last year’s solitary winner from the entire week was a genuine anomaly.
Elliott is currently top of the Irish trainers’ championship and had five winners at the Dublin Racing Festival. The ammunition is there. The question is whether Cheltenham’s unique demands — the hill, the crowd, the tight track — will again prove the stumbling block.
Brighterdaysahead: The Redemption Run
The headline act is Brighterdaysahead, and her form profile makes compelling reading.
She’s run ten times at Grade 1 level or above, winning six. Her most recent outing was a 3.25-length demolition of Lossiemouth in the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown on February 1st — a performance that established her as the clear Champion Hurdle favourite.
But Cheltenham hasn’t loved her yet. She was beaten at 5/6 in the 2024 Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, then finished fourth in last year’s Champion Hurdle at 5/2 — a run Elliott puts down to a physical issue discovered afterwards and rectified since.
Her official rating of 159 is the highest it’s been heading into a Cheltenham, and the Leopardstown win carried real authority. Elliott has hinted at stabling her outside Cheltenham this year, a tweak to acclimatisation that suggests nothing is being left to chance.
If she turns up in the same form she showed at Leopardstown, the Champion Hurdle field has a serious problem.
El Cairos: Speed Machine for the Supreme
The other eye-catcher from the stable tour is El Cairos, who’s being aimed at the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on day one.
His profile is unusual for an Elliott horse — not the big, robust chasing type the yard favours, but a sharp, quick animal that Jack Kennedy describes as “the fastest I’ve ridden.” He won at Thurles on January 29th at 1/5 on ground Elliott described as “nearly unraceable,” which was deliberately used as a prep run to avoid a closer-to-Festival outing.
His earlier form includes a fifth in the 2025 Champion Bumper at 28/1 — promising for a horse that was still learning his trade — and a win at Newbury on his Rules debut. The Supreme’s minimum trip should suit his raw speed, and if the ground comes up decent, he could outpace the opposition.
The Wider Picture
Elliott’s 2026 Festival squad could number 50 runners. Romeo Coolio holds an Arkle entry, and the yard is reportedly represented across nearly every day of the meeting.
From the data, Elliott’s Festival record shows he tends to perform in cycles — the 2020 haul of five winners was followed by the ban year, then a gradual rebuild through 2022-23 before last year’s dip. If the pattern holds, 2026 should see a return to form.
With the leading Irish trainer’s title, Dublin Racing Festival momentum, and a genuine Champion Hurdle contender, Elliott arrives at Prestbury Park with his strongest hand in years. Whether that translates into winners depends on the fine margins that make Cheltenham what it is — but the numbers suggest this is a yard primed to deliver.