The Cheltenham Festival is the biggest week in jump racing, bar none. For four days every March, the best horses, trainers and jockeys on the planet descend on Prestbury Park, and what happens there shapes how we remember the entire season.
Cheltenham
2026 is shaping up to follow the usual format, but there are already some
massive storylines building and rivalries that could define the week.
Dates and
daily structure
Cheltenham
2026 runs from Tuesday 10 March to Friday 13 March, with four days of racing
and seven races on each card. Like always, the meeting builds through the week
before everything comes down to the Gold Cup on Friday afternoon.
Racing
starts at 1.30 pm each day and wraps up at 5.30 pm, a schedule that has become
standard and gives each card time to breathe. The big race of the day always
takes place late in the afternoon, making sure the Festival's defining moments
hit when the atmosphere is best and the pressure is highest.
The four
days at a glance
Tuesday
kicks things off with Champion Day, headlined by the Champion Hurdle, where
speed, accuracy and nerve are tested at the highest level. It is a day that tends to
suit established stars and sets the tone for everything that follows.
Wednesday
brings a mix of top-class hurdles and seriously competitive handicaps, with the
Queen Mother Champion Chase as the standout race. It's two miles of relentless
pace and jumping that has to be spot on.
Thursday is
St Patrick's Thursday, a day that often belongs to the Irish raiders and
features the staying races where stamina gets put firmly under the microscope.
Friday is
Gold Cup Day, where all roads lead to one race. The Festival's biggest prize is
expected to go off at 4 pm, and by that point, nothing else matters.
Key names
to look out for
As we get
closer to Cheltenham, the usual suspects are dominating the conversation once
again. Willie Mullins sits at the centre of the Festival narrative as always,
with strength across every division and a track record of getting horses
absolutely flying come mid-March. Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead will
both send strong teams over too, particularly in the staying races and
handicaps where they've had plenty of success.
From
Britain, Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls are likely to go with smaller but
more carefully picked squads, while Dan Skelton's yard continues to be judged
on whether it can turn strong domestic form into Grade 1 wins when it really
counts at the Festival.
Who could
win the Gold Cup?
At the time
of writing, Galopin Des Champs and Inothewayurthinkin are joint-favourites at
6/1, despite both getting beaten over Christmas. Those defeats haven't shifted
their standing one bit, which tells you how highly rated they still are at the
top of the staying chase division.
Galopin Des
Champs set the standard by winning back-to-back Gold Cups in 2023 and 2024,
performances that made him the dominant stayer of his generation. That run came
to an end in 2025 when Inothewayurthinkin beat him in a result that completely
reshaped the division and set up a proper rivalry at the top.
For Willie
Mullins, that defeat stung, not because there's any wider problem with the
yard, but because expectations had grown so high after those two Gold Cup wins.
This year, the aim is obvious – win the Gold Cup back. But the big question is
whether Galopin Des Champs can reclaim his crown or if Inothewayurthinkin has
taken over as the new boss of the division.
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