Festival on The Race Lab

Cheltenham Festival 2026: The Complete Guide — All 28 Races, Favourites & Tips

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cheltenham Festival 2026: The Complete Race-by-Race Guide

Dates: Tuesday 10 March – Friday 13 March 2026
Venue: Cheltenham Racecourse, Prestbury Park
Total Prize Money: Over £9 million across 28 races

The greatest four days in jump racing starts tomorrow. Four days, 28 races, one winner each. Here’s everything you need to know about every race at the 2026 Cheltenham Festival — favourites, contenders, stats and angles.

📅 DAY 1 — CHAMPION DAY | Tuesday 10 March

Old Course. The most star-studded day in jump racing.

A Beginner's Guide to Cheltenham Festival Betting

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Cheltenham Festival is the biggest event in jump racing. Four days in March, 28 races, and more money wagered than any other meeting in the British and Irish racing calendar. If you bet on horse racing at all, you’ve probably had a Cheltenham bet. But the Festival is its own world with its own rules, and what works in regular midweek racing doesn’t always apply here.

How the Festival works

The meeting takes place over four days, Tuesday to Friday, at Cheltenham Racecourse in Gloucestershire. Each day has seven races, and each race is a championship event or a major handicap. The quality is as high as jump racing gets.

The Cheltenham Festival Trainers Who Punch Above Their Weight

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

March means one thing in the racing calendar: Cheltenham Festival. While the spotlight falls on the big yards with their battalions of runners, the data tells a more interesting story about who actually delivers when it matters.

Over the past five years, Charles Byrnes has sent just 16 runners to Cheltenham and saddled three winners. That 18.75% strike rate tops the lot when you filter for trainers with a meaningful sample size. Byrnes does not flood the entry system—he targets. His horses average 15.6/1, so he is not landing short-priced favourites either. These are proper value strikes.

10 Years of Cheltenham Festival Data: What the Numbers Really Tell Us

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

10 Years of Cheltenham Festival Data: What the Numbers Really Tell Us

We’ve crunched a decade of Cheltenham Festival results — every race from 2016 to 2025 — to find the patterns that matter. Not punditry. Not hunches. Just data.

Here’s what 425 races and thousands of runners actually tell us.

Favourite Win Rate: Better Than You Think

The festival’s reputation for shocks is partly myth. Over ten years, favourites won 30.6% of all races — meaning roughly one in three races is won by the market leader.