How to Bet on the Cheltenham Festival with Betfred

Horse racing is one of the most popular sports to bet on and the Cheltenham Festival is like its Olympics, so it's fair to say it's up there with the biggest betting events on the entire sporting calendar.

It attracts new punters every year and so we at Betfred Insights have produced this guide detailing how to bet on the Cheltenham Festival with Betfred.

Format

The Cheltenham Festival, which takes place in March every year, is widely regarded as the pinnacle of National Hunt racing. The jumps racing Olympics, if you may.

At present - bear in mind there's been many changes to the format since the event's inception in 1860 and there's likely more to come - it's staged over four days, from Tuesday to Friday, with each card consisting of seven races. That's a total of 28 across the week.

There's four championship races - one for each day. These are the Champion Hurdle (Tuesday), Queen Mother Champion Chase (Wednesday), Stayers' Hurdle (Thursday) and the Gold Cup (Friday). The latter, which offers the biggest prize pot, is the highlight.

That's not all, though. There's many more Grade 1s and big betting handicaps to enjoy and have a wager on during the meeting.

Cheltenham Festival Betting Odds

How to bet on the Cheltenham Festival

In the main, betting on the Cheltenham Festival is no different to doing so on a midweek card at Haydock, for example. All the usual bet types - to win, each-way, forecasts, tricasts, accumulators, Lucky 15s, etc - are available within the 48 hours prior to race time. Click here for our comprehensive guide to betting on horse racing.

However, because there's such a big build up to the Cheltenham Festival, antepost betting plays a big part in the occasion.

Antepost betting on the Cheltenham Festival is when you place a wager - to win or each-way only - on a horse for any one of the selected races before learning the final fields at the 48-hour declaration stage. Often this means taking a bigger price at the risk of losing your whole stake if the selection doesn't go to post on the day.

For some of the bigger races, like the aforementioned championship ones, antepost markets are available all year round. Others are added as we draw nearer to the week itself.

So, whether you like the idea of getting your bets on well in advance and potentially sitting on juicy prices come the day or the security of getting a run for your money, there's plenty of opportunity for you to bet on the Cheltenham Festival with Betfred.

Read all our latest Cheltenham Tips here at Betfred Insights