A Trip to Cheltenham for the Greatest Horse Racing Festival in the World

In less than two hours, you can be at Cheltenham Racecourse from Bath and the course will soon host the best horse racing festival in the world.

"Cheltenham Racecourse" by Carine06 (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Cheltenham Festival runs in March, from Tuesday 12th March until Friday 15th March and, on each day, tens of thousands of horse racing fans will descend on the track to see the very best that national hunt racing has to offer.

For horse racing fans, Cheltenham is the equivalent of Christmas and, once you have been to the festival and witnessed the drama on the course and the atmosphere off of it, you will be inclined to agree.

Every day of the festival is full of top quality action; it doesn’t matter what day you go, you will see superstars on the track. The highlight for many is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which takes place on Friday, the final day. Native River saw off Might Bite in a thriller in 2018 and those two look set to be amongst the field once again in 2019.

With a distance of over three miles and an uphill finish, it takes a special horse to win the Gold Cup; many try but only a special few get it done. With this being the highlight of the week, you can expect it to draw attention from gamblers, with money put down by punters in the hope that they can claim they backed the Gold Cup winner. If you are looking to get involved, then Oddschecker have a number of free bet offers you can take advantage of to place a bet in the feature race of the week.

On the opening day of the festival, the feature race is the Champion Hurdle and, here, we have Buveur D’Air aiming to win his third title in a row. This season, we have an interesting element added to the race, with Irish mare Apple’s Jade taking him on in receipt of the mares allowance. Both horses are incredibly popular with the general public and, if either takes the Champion Hurdle, they are going to make the headlines on day one.

"Cheltenham Racecourse" by Arpingstone

Day two is all about the Queen Mother Champion Chase, and that race revolves around one horse only and that is Altior. He is already long odds on to win the race for the second consecutive year, and he goes into the festival on a hugely impressive 17 race unbeaten run.

There is no doubt that he is a special animal, and he looks sure to dominate the two-mile division for years to come.

If there is one downside to Altior dominating the two-mile division, it is that we will not see him tried over three miles, which he looks as though he would be able to handle. There is every chance that if given the opportunity to try further in distance, he could be a King George and Gold Cup winner but, for now, we will have to settle for watching this fantastic animal dominating races over two miles.

On Thursday, the feature race is the Stayers Hurdle, a division that has been described as weak by some, but one that is very competitive. The problem with the division is that we have been waiting for a horse to come along and dominate the rest for a while now, and no one has quite done that. However, that may all change at Cheltenham this year, if the trial for the race back in January is anything to go by.

The hugely progressive Paisley Park won the trial in emphatic style to leap to the head of the market for the Stayers Hurdle and, with further wins earlier in the season to show this wasn’t a fluke, we could be looking at the next dominant force in this division. He does still have to prove it on the biggest stage, of course, which is at the festival and those heading down on Thursday could be the ones to witness the first victory at the festival for a horse racing star of the future.

It doesn’t matter which of the four days you watch, a day at the Cheltenham Festival will be an unforgettable experience.