Cheltenham Festival 2024

100 YEARS OF THE GOLD CUP – The Cheltenham Festival 2024 is the pinnacle event of the jump-racing calendar, this year will be bigger than ever as we celebrate 100 years of the Gold Cup across the week. Guaranteed excellence, whether you join on Champion Day on Tuesday, Style Wednesday, St Patrick’s Day on Thursday or Gold Cup Day on Friday. Each day offers a unique twist on four days of extraordinary.

Four extraordinary days of racing from Tuesday to Friday in March. Featuring 14 Grade One races across four days of racing as the best horses, trainers and jockeys go head to head.

• Featuring 14 grade one races
• Across seven races a day
• For four extraordinary days
• The best horses, trainers and jockeys going head to head.

Each of the races at The Cheltenham Festival is a chance to be part of history. It creates memories that last a lifetime. You don’t want to miss it. We look forward to enjoying the action with you in 2024.

Champion Day

The Grade 1 Skybet Supreme raises the curtain to the Cheltenham Festival with a roar, last year we saw Marine National land the spoils for trainer Barry Connell, who enjoyed his first Cheltenham Festival winner as a trainer, having had previous success as an owner. It was also jockey Michael O’Sullivan’s first Cheltenham Festival winner.

History was made in the Unibet Champion Hurdle as Jump Racing’s hero Constitution Hill came home in emphatic style under Nico de Boinville for Nicky Henderson and owner Michael Buckley. Constitution Hill’s performance was breath-taking, he jumped with speed, precision and accuracy and awarded Nicky Henderson his 9th Champion Hurdle winner spanning from 1985 to 2023.

The legendary Honeysuckle provided for some the most memorable moment of the 2023 Cheltenham Festival, when she recorded her fourth Festival win on her final visit to Presbury Park. Her triumph provided emotion, elation and pride for horse racing fans across the land. She captured our hearts and to see her finish her prolific career with a Cheltenham Festival win, was exceptionally special. Are you ready for the Cheltenham Roar?

Style Wednesday

Day two is filled with unmissable action on and off the track, Where the world of jump racing comes together to celebrate everything that makes racing wonderful. Jam-packed with unmissable action on and off the turf, as the words of fashion and racing glitterati come together. Featuring the betway queen mother champion chase, where speed and jumping ability matters most.

Irish raider Energumene has won the last two renewals of the Betway Queen Mother Champion chase and he has earned his place next to greats like Altior and Sprinter Sacre. Can he make it three in a row at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival? The Real Whacker made a dream come true for trainer Patrick Neville, when landing the Grade 1 Brown Advisory Novices’ chase by a short head against the Irish powerhouse Gordon Elliott’s Gerri Colombe. The Real Whacker provided trainer Patrick Neville, previously an electrical engineer, with his biggest victory to date, will he be able to achieve an even bigger prize this season and when he goes for gold in The Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup?

The day concludes with the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, where stars of the future are often making their first visit to the Cotswolds. We saw A Dream To Share come home in front last year, providing 82 year-old trainer John Kiely and young jockey John Gleeson with their first Cheltenham Festival winner. The JP McManus owned a Dream To Share gave the Gleeson family memories to last a lifetime, Claire Gleeson, wife of ITV Racing’s Brian bred both horse and jockey! There looks to be bigger days to come and surely, he will be visiting Presbury Park in the not-too-distant future. Style Wednesday is a celebration of thrilling and exhilarating sporting action, make sure you’re there to celebrate in style as racing’s glitterati put on a show like no other.

St Patrick’s Thursday

Where Irish passion for the sport and the Cheltenham Festival raises the rafters and the craic is mighty. The Cheltenham Festival is a second home to the Irish and St Patrick’s Thursday reflects this both on and off the track.

Envoi Allen gave Henry de Bromhead his second victory of the 2023 Cheltenham Festival in the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase. No one thought anything could come close to Honeysuckle’s win earlier in the week for the de Bromhead family, but seeing Envoi Allen back in the sacred Cheltenham Winners’ Enclosure provided another emotional and exceptional moment at the Cheltenham Festival for racing fans.

The Grade 1 Paddy Power Stayers Hurdle went to the ever tough and ever consistent Sire Du Berlais for the Cheltenham Festival’s most successful of owner all time JP McManus. Trained by Gordon Elliott and ridden by Mark Walsh, Sire Du Berlais, who comes to life in the Spring, put up a gutsy performance to win by 3/4 ‘s of a length to the Jeremy Scott trained Dashel Drasher. Make sure you are there to see if the Irish will dominate the feature races again on St Patrick’s Thursday?

Gold Cup Day

100 YEARS OF HEROES the pinnacle of Jump Racing, where winners go down in history and legends are born. Gold Cup Day is something quite incredible, indescribably amazing. The racing, the atmosphere, the entertainment. This year is going to be bigger and better than ever before as we celebrate 100 years of the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Featuring The Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, the blue riband race. The pre-race tension, the exhilaration of the race and jubilations of the aftermath. You will never see or experience anything quite like it, as whatever the result, every year it is different.

Stay Away Fay gave British Champion trainer Paul Nicholls his second winner of the 2023 Cheltenham Festival, with Harry Cobden doing the steering in the Grade 1 Albert Bartlett on the final day of the Festival.

Galopin Des Champs was a spectacular winner of Jump Racing’s blue ribband race for the winning most Cheltenham Festival trainer Willie Mullins. The Cheltenham Gold Cup eluded Willie Mullins for many years, but since Al Boum Photo won his first Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2019, and he has now won three of the last five renewals of the race, with fellow Irish trainer Henry De Bromhead winning the other two.

Can the exuberant and exceptional Galopin Des Champs repeat the feat of former stable mate Al Boum Photo and win back-to-back Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cups in the Gold Cup centenary year or will someone else take the most prestigious crown in Jump Racing?

Don’t miss out on the Cheltenham Festival, records will be broken, history will be made and dreams will come true and you could be part of it.

Restaurant Packages & Dining Experiences

The highlight of our season is the Cheltenham Festival, where you can choose from a variety of extraordinary restaurant experiences available. Our restaurants offer incredible views of the course or Winners’ Enclosure providing an atmosphere like no other.

A lunch to remember is a vital part of the racing experience and here at Cheltenham, we are determined to send you home happy, thanks to award-winning dishes using seasonal and local produce and service of the highest standard. Hospitality experiences range from fine dining, a la carte menu by Michelin starred chefs, to our very own pub.

Cheltenham Hospitality

The heart of almost every aspect of Jump racing. This is the place where owners, trainers, jockeys, stable staff and breeders dream of having winners. There are 16 racedays throughout the season.

Cheltenham History

The first organised Flat race meeting in Cheltenham took place in 1815 on Nottingham Hill, with the first races on Cleeve Hill in August 1818. Racing’s popularity soared over the next decade with crowds of 30,000 visiting the racecourse for its annual two day July meeting featuring the Gold Cup, a 3m flat race. In 1829, Cheltenham’s Parish Priest, Reverend Francis Close, preached the evils of horseracing and aroused such strong feeling amongst his congregation that the race meeting in 1830 was disrupted. Before the following year’s meeting, the grandstand was burnt to the ground. To overcome this violent opposition the racecourse was moved to Prestbury Park, its current venue, in 1831. Steeplechasing became established in nearby Andoversford from 1834 and moved to the present course in 1898.

In 1964, Racecourse Holdings Trust (now Jockey Club Racecourses) was formed to secure the future of Cheltenham. The group now owns 14 racecourses – a combination of jump, flat and dual-purpose courses – as well as training grounds in Newmarket, Lambourn and Epsom and the National Stud. The Jockey Club Group reinvest all profits back into British racing to ensure its continued success. The stands changed little between the 1930s and 1950s when the National Hunt Steeplechase course ran behind the back of the stands. 1924 saw the introduction of The Gold Cup