Cheltenham Festival betting: four days, four feature races, the terms

The Festival in a few facts

The Cheltenham Festival is four days of National Hunt racing in March, run from Tuesday to Friday at Cheltenham. It is the main meeting of the jumps season, and each day has a feature race that gives the day its name in the betting. Day one is Champion Day, with the Champion Hurdle. Day two is Ladies Day, with the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Day three is St Patrick’s Thursday, with the Ryanair Chase and the Stayers’ Hurdle. Day four is Gold Cup Day, with the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The feature races are run over different distances and suit different kinds of horse. The Champion Hurdle is a two-mile hurdle race. The Champion Chase is a two-mile steeplechase. The Ryanair Chase is run over about two and a half miles. The Gold Cup, over a little more than three and a quarter miles, is the stamina test of the week. Between the feature races each day has other Grade 1 contests and several handicaps with big fields. Sponsors, times and the order of the races can change from year to year, and Cheltenham’s own schedule is the place to check them.

How the races differ for a bettor

A bettor who treats the Festival as one event misses the point that it is many different races. A two-mile hurdler and a staying chaser are different horses with different markets. The Grade 1 races usually have a small number of well-fancied horses and favourites at short prices, so the place part of an each way bet is a small return. The handicaps have 20 or more runners, so the prices are wider and each way is the usual way to bet.

Form from other courses counts, and so does form at Cheltenham itself, which is a track with a hill to the finish and a reputation for finding out horses that do not stay. The going, which describes the ground, changes through the week, and the prices change with it. Look at the going before you look at the odds.

Reading a Festival race: distance, class and course

Three questions help with any Festival race. How far is it, and has the horse won over that distance? What class is it, a Grade 1 contest for the best horses or a handicap for a wider group? And how has the horse run at Cheltenham, where the finish is uphill and a horse that does not quite stay is often found out in the last furlong?

The answers shape the price. A horse that has won at Grade 1 level over the distance is short, and a horse that has run well but never won over it is longer. A horse with no form at Cheltenham may be a bigger price than its other form deserves, or it may be a bigger price for a reason. The market already knows the obvious points, so use them to understand a price, not to second-guess it.

The handicaps

The Festival has handicaps as well as the Grade 1 races, and they are where the biggest fields and the longest prices are found. Each horse carries a weight from the official handicapper, so the field is meant to be evenly matched on paper. They are the races where each way is most common and where extra places are most often advertised. A big-field handicap is also where a single withdrawal costs least under Rule 4, because most of the runners are at long prices.

How the prices move through the week

Festival prices move more than on an ordinary day. News on the ground, a withdrawal, a trainer’s comment or a run of results on the first day can change the market on the next. Prices on a race taken in the morning may be different at the off, and the starting price can be bigger or smaller than the price you took. That is the reason some bettors take an early price with Best Odds Guaranteed and others bet at the starting price.

Apps, cash-out and watching on the day

On a Festival day many people bet from a phone. Check before the day that the app works, that you are logged in and that deposit and time limits are set. Cash-out is offered on selected bets and is rarely the full value of a bet, and a cashed-out bet may lose Best Odds Guaranteed. Streaming of the racing differs by bookmaker and by account, and our betting apps page and the reviews say what each of the ten states.

Ante-post betting on the Festival

Bookmakers open ante-post markets on the main Festival races many months in advance. The price can be bigger than the price on the day, and the risk is that your horse does not take part. In most cases the stake on an ante-post bet is lost if the horse is withdrawn or does not run, where a bet struck on the day would be void and returned. Ante-post bets are generally outside Best Odds Guaranteed.

Some bookmakers advertise their own conditions for Festival ante-post bets, such as paying on a different basis if a horse is withdrawn. These are promotions with terms of their own. We do not print them, because they change from year to year, and each bookmaker’s page states the current wording. Read it before you place the bet.

Each way, extra places and Best Odds Guaranteed

Each way is the common bet in the Festival handicaps, and bookmakers often advertise extra places on them. An extra place pays the place part on one more finishing position than the standard terms, with conditions that are set out in the offer. It changes the number of places, not the arithmetic, and the offer’s terms say which bets and which races it covers. Our each way guide explains the place terms and the sums.

Best Odds Guaranteed pays a winning racing bet at the starting price if that is bigger than the price you took, from the start time each bookmaker states on the day of the race. On a Festival day, a bettor who takes a morning price on a horse in a big handicap may be paid at a bigger price if the horse drifts. Some bookmakers exclude races where they are offering other promotions, so check whether the race you want is covered. See our Best Odds Guaranteed guide.

Non-runners and Rule 4

Horses are withdrawn from Festival races in the days and hours before the off, often because of the ground. If a horse is withdrawn after you have bet at a fixed price and after the final declarations, a Rule 4 deduction can reduce the winnings of your bet. The deduction depends on the price of the withdrawn horse: a favourite taken out of a small Grade 1 field costs more than an outsider taken out of a big handicap. The Rule 4 calculator works it out, and the Rule 4 guide explains the scale.

A bet across the four days

Many bettors build a bet that has one selection a day. A full-cover bet such as a Lucky 15 spreads four selections across fifteen bets, so one winner can still return something.

With four selections at 3/1, 4/1, 5/1 and 6/1, a £1 Lucky 15 costs £15. All four winning returns £1,679, and two winning returns £29. One winner at 3/1 returns £4 against a stake of £15, which is a loss of £11. The bet pays well only when most of the selections win, which is rare. The figures are arithmetic and not a forecast. Our bet calculator works out any full-cover bet, and the types of bets guide says what each costs.

Planning a Festival budget

Four days of racing with a feature each afternoon is a long run of chances to bet again. Decide the total you are prepared to spend for the week and divide it by day before the first race. A winning day is not a reason to raise the budget, and a losing day is not a reason to chase. Set a deposit limit in your account, and use a time-out if you notice that you are betting on races you have no view on.

Whatever you bet on, the Festival is a sequence of short races separated by long gaps, and the gaps are where extra bets get made. Treat the card as a plan you made before the first race, not as a series of new decisions, and stop when the amount you set aside for the day is spent.

Common mistakes at the Festival

The first is betting on the day’s feature race at a short price each way, where a place rarely covers the stake. The second is taking an ante-post price without thinking about what happens if the horse does not run. The third is treating an extra-place offer as free money: it has terms and it does not change the horse’s chance. The fourth is spreading the budget across so many races that the total is bigger than intended. The fifth is forgetting that a favourite’s withdrawal can change the bet through Rule 4.

Betting is for people aged 18 and over. For free, confidential support, contact GambleAware, and use GamStop if you want every licensed UK site blocked. Our horse racing betting sites guide compares ten UK-licensed bookmakers, and the reviews cover each one.