Cheltenham Festival 2027: the four championship races and how to back them early

The 2026 championship winners

Last March belonged to one stable and one jockey. Willie Mullins trained and Paul Townend rode three of the four championship winners.

• Champion Hurdle (10 March): Lossiemouth won as the 7/5 favourite, six and a half lengths clear of Brighterdaysahead, with The New Lion third in a field of nine. She became the eighth mare to win the race, and it was her fourth festival win in four years after the Triumph Hurdle in 2023 and the Mares' Hurdle in 2024 and 2025.
• Queen Mother Champion Chase: Il Etait Temps, an eight-year-old grey, won at 5–2 by ten lengths. Libberty Hunter, a 50–1 shot, was second and L'Eau Du Sud third. He had been beaten on three earlier visits to Cheltenham and came in having won the Tingle Creek in December.
• Stayers' Hurdle: the outsider of the championships. Home By The Lee, aged eleven and trained by Joseph O'Brien, held Ballyburn by a length and a quarter under JJ Slevin. It was his fifth attempt at the race.
• Gold Cup (13 March): Gaelic Warrior and Jango Baie went off joint favourites at 11/4, and Gaelic Warrior won by eight lengths on good to soft ground. It was a record-equalling fifth Gold Cup for Mullins and a record fifth for Townend.

In the Ryanair Chase, Heart Wood went one better than the year before for Henry de Bromhead, beating the 2–1 favourite Jonbon by ten lengths.

The Irish edge is measurable. The Prestbury Cup counts winners trained in Ireland against those trained in Britain across all 28 races. Ireland won it 15–13 in 2026, their seventh in a row since 2020, though that was the narrowest gap since the 14–14 tie of 2019.

How Cheltenham ante-post works

An ante-post bet is any bet struck before the final declarations, which come 48 hours before each race. The appeal is the price: a fancied horse is usually a bigger price months out than it will be on the day. The cost is the settlement rule, and it catches out more Cheltenham betting than any wrong opinion. Under standard ante-post terms, if your horse does not run, the bet is settled as a loser and the stake is gone.

That matters more at Cheltenham than at most meetings, because many good horses hold entries in more than one race. A two-mile hurdler might be entered in the Champion Hurdle and a novice chase; a mare can run against the geldings or in her own division; a chaser may be aimed at the Gold Cup or dropped back to the Ryanair. Connections often decide late, and the horse you backed for one race turns up in another.

Non-runner no bet, or NRNB, is the most useful concession in Cheltenham betting because it removes that risk. If your selection is not in the field for the race you chose, the stake comes back. Bookmakers bring it in for festival races during the build-up, and after the 48-hour declarations most move to those terms anyway. The trade-off is usually a shorter price than the old ante-post odds.

A simple rule for Cheltenham betting on the championships:

1. Bet ante-post without NRNB only when the target race is all but settled and the price is clearly bigger than you expect in March.
2. When a horse has two realistic targets, wait for NRNB or for connections to commit.
3. Check each-way place terms before you bet. In big fields the place part of the bet carries much of the value.

Our horse racing betting guide covers each-way, the starting price and Rule 4 in full.

Early Cheltenham tips for the 2027 championships

What follows is our view on early Cheltenham betting, not a forecast of the result, and it rests on last season's form only. Five months is a long time in jump racing, and any of these horses can miss the meeting.

Gold Cup. Our view: Gaelic Warrior is the horse to beat. He won the 2026 race by eight lengths and then took the Punchestown Gold Cup in May by twenty-six lengths from Fact To File. The problem for Cheltenham odds is the price: a reigning champion at the top of the market rarely offers value this far out. Our pick is to wait. If you want an early angle, Jango Baie, eight lengths behind as joint favourite, is the obvious each-way runner at what we would expect to be a bigger price (estimate).

Champion Hurdle. Our view: Lossiemouth is the best hurdler on the evidence, and she added the Punchestown Champion Hurdle on 1 May for an eleventh Grade 1. No plans for 2027 have been announced, and a mare who has won the Mares' Hurdle twice keeps that race as an option. That is the textbook case for waiting for NRNB.

Queen Mother Champion Chase. Our view: Il Etait Temps won by a wide margin, but he had failed three times at the course before that, and the runner-up was a 50–1 shot. We would want to see him win again this winter before backing him at a short price.

Stayers' Hurdle. Our view: this is the most open of the four. Home By The Lee will be twelve next March, and he needed five attempts to win the race. Ballyburn, beaten a length and a quarter, is the form horse to follow. Until his autumn target is clear, we would only back him with NRNB.

When you are ready to bet, the shortlist of no ID betting sites shows each site's ID trigger before you sign up.

Next to read: The Masters and Ryder Cup.

Where to watch Cheltenham

The festival is shown live in Britain and Ireland by national broadcasters, and the dedicated racing channels carry the racing each day. Viewers elsewhere should check the broadcaster that holds racing rights in their country.

Some betting sites also stream racing inside a logged-in account, usually once the account is funded or a bet is on. We have picked sites that offer this, but what each one shows differs, and not every race at every meeting is covered. Check the site's own schedule before relying on it for festival week, and keep the stream and your Cheltenham betting in the same place only if the coverage is confirmed.

More racing and sports guides

The other big jumps meeting of the spring is at Aintree. Our Grand National guide covers the race, its entry process and how each-way terms work in a field of that size. For the full list of sports we write about, from football to darts, see the sports betting hub. If betting stops being fun, our responsible gambling page lists the help available.

Bitcasino.ioSportsbook

US$2,500When ID can be asked

Open