Cheltenham Festival 2024

The 2024 Cheltenham Festival promises once again to be the highlight of the British jump racing season, and Horse & Hound’s experienced journalists are on hand to bring you all the key stories as they happen. In the meantime, scroll down to enjoy a look back at memorable Festival moments and read more about the legendary Cheltenham horses who have gone down in history.

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When is the Cheltenham Festival 2024?

The dates of the Cheltenham Festival 2024 are Tuesday 12 March to Friday 15 March.

Latest Cheltenham News

Cheltenham Festival 2024: horses to watch

Cheltenham Festival essential info

Celebrating Cheltenham’s legendary horses

Memorable Cheltenham Festival moments

Major races at the Cheltenham Festival

The Festival is an embarrassment of riches for racing fans with 14 Grade One races spread across the four days.

The most prestigious race at the meeting is Friday’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, which has been won by such iconic horses as Arkle, Golden Miller, Best Mate, Kauto Star and Denman. History was made in 2022 when Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival on board A Plus Tard, trained by Henry de Bromhead and owned by Cheveley Park Stud.

Other top races held at the festival include the Champion Hurdle (Tuesday), the Queen Mother Champion Chase (Wednesday) and the Stayers’ Hurdle (Thursday).

The Cheltenham Festival also hosts the Festival Hunters’ Chase, formerly called the Foxhunter Chase, for amateur riders. Around the same course and distance as the Cheltenham Gold Cup, it typically follows the famous race on the final day of The Festival.

Which jockey has ridden the most Cheltenham Festival winners?

Ruby Walsh has ridden 59 winners at the Cheltenham Festival and was crowned leading jockey at the Festival on 11 occasions between 2004 and 2017 before retiring in 2019. On two occasions he set the record of riding seven winners across the four-day Festival, the first time in 2009 and again in 2016.

Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey to claim the leading jockey award at the Festival after riding six winners in 2021. In 2022 she added becoming the first female jockey to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle and to her outstanding list of career highlights.

Which horse has won the most Cheltenham Gold Cups?

Golden Miller holds the record for winning the most Cheltenham Gold Cups. He won the race five years in a row, from 1932 to 1936, and in 1934 he became the only horse ever to win the Grand National at Aintree and the Gold Cup in the same season.

Cottage Rake (1948-1950), Arkle (1963-1965) and Best Mate (2002-2004) all won the race three times in consecutive years, claiming their place in the history books.

History of the Cheltenham Festival

W A Baring Bingham purchased the Prestbury Park area where the racecourse sits, in 1881, with the intention of turning it into a stud farm, before realising there was an appetite for horseracing in the area.

As a result, he decided to host a race meeting in 1898 — it proved popular enough to host more racing there the following year, and it continued to grow in popularity until, in 1902, it played host to a National Hunt Festival in mid-April.

Two years later the National Hunt Chase was moved to Prestbury Park for successive years, having first run at Market Harborough in 1860, and in 1911 Cheltenham Racecourse became the race’s permanent home.

The 1911 running of this fixture was classed as the first Cheltenham Festival as we think of it today.

Learn more about the Cheltenham Festival’s history

Cheltenham Festival 2023 review

The highlight of the jump racing season – the 2023 Cheltenham Festival – promised top-class racing from the start and it did not disappoint. Constitution Hill was once again the talk of the town, winning the Champion Hurdle by a significant margin at a canter, before last year’s Champion Hurdle winner, Honeysuckle, claimed the Mare’s Hurdle amid emotional scenes in the final race of her career.

On the second day of top-flight jump racing we saw Energumene emerge triumphant for the second year in a row in the Queen Mother Champion Chase, while Delta Work claimed back to back wins in the Glenfarclas Cross-Country Chase.

On day three, Sire Du Berlais delivered a shock result in the Stayers’ Hurdle, winning at odds of 33/1. Running at his sixth Cheltenham Festival, the 11-year-old added this victory to his previous two Pertemps Final victories at the Festival, in 2019 and 2020.

The final day of the Festival saw seven-year-old Galopin Des Champs power up the hill in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, swaggering his way to victory under Paul Townend for trainer Willie Mullins.

Follow all the Cheltenham Festival results

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