For many, the Cheltenham Festival is the most loved, closely followed and popular jumps racing festival on the calendar, trumping even Aintree and its flagship race, the Grand National.
If you're a bit new to it and the reasons for its appeal, here’s your chance to find out about Cheltenham’s history and the different types of races, bets and bonuses that relate to it.
Cheltenham Festival History
Kicking off our betting guide for Cheltenham is a brief look at the Festival’s long and colourful history.
Originally known as the Grand National Hunt meeting, which included the National Hunt Chase, it was first staged at Market Harborough in 1860 before taking place at Cheltenham itself, Warwick and other venues before finding its permanent home at Cheltenham from 1911 onwards.
This was after Prestbury Park developed a new racecourse in 1902, which included a stand that could host more people, a bigger paddock and a drainage system that allowed for racing even when it was raining.
The Stayers Hurdle is the oldest Festival race to still be a championship race, having been contested since 1912, while the Gold Cup has been run since 1924 as the richest and most prestigious race of the lot. Only on four occasions, for various reasons, has it not been contested after 1912.
Since 2005, it’s been held over four days rather than the previous three, and appropriately, given how much Irish racegoers love the Festival, it always coincides with St. Patrick’s Day.
Types of Races at the Cheltenham Festival
One of the fascinating aspects of the Cheltenham Festival is the variety in terms of the different types of races that take place over the course of the Festival. Here are some of the types of races that you can look forward to when it gets underway.
- Amateur: This refers to the jockey rather than the horse. Some Cheltenham Festival races are only open to amateur jockeys. They don’t get paid for racing nor receive a share of any prize money, so at least in terms of the jockeys’ experience, it’s a level playing field. Three races will be open to amateurs only this year, with the National Hunt Chase the most important of them.
- Cross country: These are the longest races of the Festival and provide a real test of stamina to the horses, who often race across the countryside, as the name suggests.
- Handicap: The horses in the race are allotted weight based on their ability, which in turn is partly dictated by their official rating. The horse with the lowest rating carries no weight. The one with the highest rating carries the most weight, and the ones in between carry more or less weight based on their ability in an attempt to make it a level playing field.
- Steeplechase: These are the races with the big jumps, sometimes also known as fences. They can include water jumps and open ditches, similar to what you find when betting on Grand National and are generally only entered by older, more experienced horses. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is an example of a steeplechase race at the Festival.
- Hurdles: These races are contested over much smaller obstacles, making them easier to jump and the races much quicker than steeplechase ones. The Champion Hurdle is the most prestigious of these at the Festival.
- National Hunt Flat Races: Unlike all the others, these are actually flat races (without any jumps at all) but run under National Hunt racing rules, of which the Champion Bumper is currently the only one in this category at the Festival.
How to Bet on the Cheltenham Festival
If you’re thinking of betting on the Cheltenham Festival but not sure how to go about it, don’t worry. This part of our Cheltenham Betting Guide will explain how to do just that.
- Open an account at one of Ask Gamblers' recommended sportsbooks.
- Make a deposit.
- Navigate to Horse Racing from the list of sports on the left-hand or top column of the homepage.
- Click on UK Racing and then Cheltenham Festival or just Cheltenham Festival if that’s already a stand-alone option.
- Choose the race you want to bet on. Ante-post markets are available months in advance, whereas ‘day of the race’ markets are generally available a couple of days before the race goes off.
- Click on the betting market you want to play. For example, the winner market, ‘to place’ or the ‘Tricast’ market.
- This is now the time to consider whether you can use any bonuses that might be available to you, such as a free bet, an Odds Boost, or a Best Odds Guaranteed offer.
- If you’re using a bonus that doesn’t require using any of your own money, make sure you opt in, tick a box or do whatever else you need to do to ensure you take advantage of the bonus rather than having to risk your own cash.
- If you do need to use your own balance, choose your stake and process the bet.
- Should you wish to bet on the race while it’s already underway, wait for the race to go off, navigate to the relevant market (generally only the winner market) in in-play betting/live betting and process your bet as normal.
Not all bookmakers are the same or operate in the same way. Here are some of the different types of betting sites and how they work when it comes to the Festival.
Fixed-odds bookmakers
These are the regular sportsbooks that most punters use. The odds are ‘fixed’ in that you can’t ‘negotiate’ them with the bookie, so it’s a case of ‘take or leave it’ as regards their prices. Also, at the moment you strike your bet, you know exactly how much you’re risking and exactly how much you could potentially win.
Tote Betting
Also known as ‘pools’ betting. Here, there are no odds for any of the horses at the time you strike your bet.
Instead, it’s all about how popular the winning horse was in the betting among all the other Tote customers for that race.
If lots of customers bet on the horse that goes on to win, then your payout won’t be so big. But if the winner wasn’t a popular selection, your pay-out will be much bigger, like backing an outsider at fixed odds.
But your payout is also determined by the size of your stake, so if you placed a bigger bet, you’ll be entitled to a bigger share of the total winnings.
Either way, if the horse you backed wins, you’ll only know exactly how much you’ve won after the Tote know how many other punters also backed it.
Ante/Post Betting
This isn’t so much about the type of betting site as it is about the timing of you placing your bet.
Ante-post markets are sometimes available as far in advance as a year, allowing savvy punters to pick horses at huge odds months before the race goes off.
In the past, most bookies operated ante-post markets so that if your horse didn’t race in it, you’d just lose your stake. But these days, most bookmakers will refund ante-post bets if the horse isn’t confirmed in the race.
Betting Exchanges
Here, you’re betting against other betting exchange customers rather than against the house/the bookie. There are three key advantages to this method of betting.
The first is that you can lay bets (like a bookie would) to lose rather than just pick horses to win.
The second is that the odds on offer as a backer are generally higher here than what they would be at fixed-odds betting sites.
The third is that you can back and lay horses during the race in-play so that if you get your odds and stakes right, you’ll win money regardless of which horse actually wins.
Types of Bets for Cheltenham Festival
We don’t need to tell you how the winner market works, but what we can tell you is that if you like to bet on horse racing, it’s certainly not the only market available to you. Next up in our Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide is a look at some of the different markets available to play.
Tricast Bet
It's one of the most challenging bets to nail. Here, you need to pick which three horses will finish first, second and third and in the correct order. The good news is that because it’s so hard to do, the odds on offer are generally huge.
Each Way Bet
‘Placing’ means finishing in the Top 3,4, 5 or sometimes 6, with how many ‘places’ there are depending on the number of runners in the race. Betting each-way means that half your stake is put on the horse to win and the other half on the horse ‘to place’.
The place odds are calculated based on the horse’s odds of winning.
If the horse wins, you’ll be paid out on both parts of the bet. If it only places, the win part of the bet will lose but the place part of the bet will be a winner.
Forecast Bet
This one works in a similar way to a Tricast bet, but you only need to pick the first and second horses in the correct order with this one, rather than the first three in the correct order. This means that forecast bets are considerably easier to win than Tricast ones.
Place Bet
We’ve already explained above what ‘to place’ means in horse racing. Rather than having your stake split into the win part and the place part, as is the case with each-way betting, here your full stake is placed just on the horse to place.
If placing in a particular race means finishing in the Top 3, you just need your pick to do that, and it doesn’t make any difference whether it finishes first, second or third.
Most Popular Cheltenham Betting Offers
Next up in our betting guide for Cheltenham is a look at some of the most popular offers and bonuses you can look forward to relating to the Festival.
Enhanced Odds
Here, the bookie will lengthen the odds on a particular horse, generally on the win market. So, if Galopin Des Champs would normally be 1.7 to win the 2025 Gold Cup, the bookie may boost its odds to 2.0 to attract more business.
Extra winnings from the boosted odds are generally paid in cash rather than as a bonus, but there’s generally a limit on how much you can place on the horse at the boosted odds.
Money-Back Guarantees
With this one, the bookie will decide on a particular event that will trigger the money-back guarantee, and if that event happens, you’ll get your money back.
For example, if your horse finishes second to the SP favourite or if your horse falls at the final hurdle, you get some of your stake (or the entire stake) back.
Free Bets
One of the most common and most popular types of betting offers around the Cheltenham Festival is the free bet.
The bookie will give you a free bet as a reward for your general loyalty or for performing a particular action, like making a deposit or placing a bet on a previous event.
The free bet is generally for a relatively small amount, like £2 or £5, and you can then use it either on a specified race or any Cheltenham race, depending on the terms of the free bet offer.
Free bets are sometimes also awarded as part of a money-back offer rather than straight cash.
Cheltenham Festival Jargon
Rounding off our Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide is a look at some of the jargon that might come in handy to you, specifically about the Cheltenham Festival or about horse racing in general.
- The jolly - Another name for the favourite.
- Chelters - Abbreviation of the Cheltenham Festival.
- Backed in - A horse that punters are constantly betting on, resulting in its price shortening.
- Banker - A horse considered almost a certainty to win.
- Cheltenham special bet - A novel type of bet around the Festival, offered by bookmakers to attract bets or just PR for themselves.
- NAP - A punter or tipster’s best bet of the day.
- Colours/Silks - The kit worn by jockeys that helps you recognise who the jockey is and which owner they are racing for.
- Drifter - A horse that nobody is backing, meaning its odds drift and become bigger.
- Form - The horse’s results in previous races that helps to determine its odds for the next race.
- Going - The state of the surface that the race will be contested on. It can be hard, soft, good or other things and affects how horses might perform, as some runners race better on one type of going and others on another.
- Long Shot - Also known as an outsider, it’s a horse who isn’t expected to win, with odds of 20.0 or far bigger being typical of long shots.
- On the nose - Placing a straight bet on a horse to win rather than each-way, or to place.
- Rating - Every horse is given a rating for each race they take part in, which contributes to their overall rating, a good measure of how good a horse is at any given time.
- Starting Price (SP) - The odds at which the horse goes off at when the race begins. With Best Odds Guaranteed, you’re paid out at the horse’s SP or at the odds the horse was when you backed it, whichever is bigger.
