Cheltenham Festival 2025: Beginner’s Guide to the Greatest show on Turf

The 'Olympics' of the National Hunt horse racing season is almost upon us as the Cheltenham Festival 2025 gets underway on Tuesday 11th March for four of the greatest days of racing you are ever likely to see.

With that in mind and conscious that some of our customers will be betting on Horse Racing for the first time, we've put together an easy-to-follow Cheltenham Festival Beginner's Guide, with tips on how to pick your horses, watch the Festival and exactly how this magnificent display of equine prowess runs through the week. 

When are where is the Cheltenham Festival 2025?

The Cheltenham Festival 2025 is a four-day National Hunt horse racing festival held annually at Cheltenham Racecourse at Prestbury Park, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. This year's event runs from Tuesday, 11th March through to Friday, 14th March.

Where to watch the Cheltenham Festival 2025 on TV?

You can watch the Cheltenham Festival on terrestrial television on ITV1, which covers the first six races of the day and runs from 13:00 to 17:00 daily. However, if you are wanting to watch the later races and full coverage, you can either subscribe to Racing UK which is available on Sky and Virgin or alternatively you can stream each race live through your Betfred account, as long as it is funded.

What is the format of the Cheltenham Festival?

The Festival is held over four consecutive days, with seven races taking place on each day for a grand total of 28 races. Of those 28 races, 13 are Grade 1 races, which are known as the highest-level of National Hunt contests held in the UK and Ireland. Each day is given a specific name, which are:

• Tuesday, 11th March 2025 - Champion Day
• Wednesday, 12th March 2025 - Style Wednesday
• Thursday, 13th March 2025 - St Patrick's Thursday
• Friday, 14th March 2025 - Gold Cup Day

There have been a few race changes this year but each day still features a Championship race, which is the showpiece event of the day and will normally contain the best horses, highest prize money and the highest volume of betting traffic of the day's action. They are:

• Tuesday, 11th March 2025 - Champion Hurdle
• Wednesday, 12th March 2025 - Queen Mother Champion Chase
• Thursday, 13th March 2025 - Stayers' Hurdle
• Friday, 14th March 2025 - Cheltenham Gold Cup

How do I pick my Horses for Cheltenham?

For a complete newcomer, the Cheltenham Festival can seem like an absolute minefield, as there is just so many races, so many horses and so many offers available. However, we've tried to simplify things so it's easier to digest.

• Take the festival day-by-day and race-by-race

There is no need to start looking forward to Friday's action on Monday evening. The majority of the action will be taken on the next day's racing or on the day once it arrives. Then break the day's action down into race-by-race and try to concentrate on which horses you really like the look of. You don't need to have one in every race!

• Don't just blindly back the favourites

Yes, they are favourites for a reason, as they may possess the best form, best ratings and potentially are the fastest horse in the race. However, there is a lot to take into account in National Hunt racing, such as handicaps, jockeys and trainer form, ground (the condition of the racecourse) and of course some pretty fearsome fences to jump over.

If you do take a short-price favourite, as can happen frequently at Cheltenham, it may be worth putting them into a multiple or accumulator bet with other favourites to try and maximise your returns.

• Do your research 

A lot of people will select their favourite colours or their favourite-named horse and while that can be fun, it's not a very good way of actually picking your horses.

If you don't have time to dig into the form or do the work yourself, there are a myriad of experts or 'tipsters' who are paid good money to do exactly that. They spend all year watching and researching these horses, with the hope of providing you with a winner when the Festival arrives. We have a great team of tipsters here at Betfred Insights including our two chief racing writers Owen McMahon and Alan Firkins, who live and breathe the sport on a day-to-day basis.

We also have our Road to Cheltenham series which you can watch on Betfred Youtube, featuring views and tips from Matt Hulmes, Frankie Foster and Joel Ross amongst others.

• Single or each-way Betting?

A single bet is taking a horse just to win the race outright. Meanwhile an each-way bet is betting on the horse to win and/or place. The wager costs you double the amount of a single, as half the wager is on the win and the other half is on the place. So when should you take which?

This will vary from customer to customer, but roughly speaking, it's not worth placing an each-way bet on anything under around 4/1, as the place returns will be less than your original stake. Therefore don't be playing an each-way bet on a 11/10 favourite, as the place returns just won't be worth it.

Conversely, it's not worth backing an outsider as a single win-only bet as the returns can be huge if it does place. For example a 100/1 shot at 1/4 the odds will pay you out at 25/1 if it places - not to be sniffed at.

• Maximise your value

Place terms can be confusing with different races paying 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 or 1/5 the odds and paying anywhere from 0 places all the way out to 7 or 8 places in races with a huge number of runners. This is a rough guide but you will find plenty of races at Cheltenham with enhanced place terms.

Working out the place terms for a horse race can be confusing, so we have listed the basic terms below.

1-4 runners in a race: no places, win only contest
5-7 runners in the race: two places, one quarter of the odds
8 or more runners in the race: three places, one fifth of the odds
12-15 runners in a handicap: three places, one quarter of the odds
16 or more runners in a handicap: four places, one quarter of the odds

You can look on our Cheltenham Festival Betting Hub nearer the time which will give you all the extra and enhanced place races, so you can easily see at a glance which are the best races to concentrate one.

We will also have money-back promotions on other races, where you will be refunded as a free bet if your horse comes second or third, as well as turbo boosts, where selected horses will be boosted out to a much bigger price than is available elsewhere. All these offers will be on our Hub and our main Betfred promotional page.