Cheltenham Festival 2025
The 2025 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 2025?
Cheltenham Festival essential info
Cheltenham Festival 2024 review
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‘He has pulled out all the stops again’: Galopin Des Champs wins back-to-back Cheltenham Gold Cups
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‘My nan used to get locked up for taking bets’: Harry Redknapp celebrates ‘dream’ first Cheltenham Festival winner
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‘We have an awful lot to thank him for’: legendary racehorse retired aged 12 at Cheltenham Festival
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‘He’s an amazing horse’: Stayers’ Hurdle winner gets Irish trainer off the mark on day three of Cheltenham Festival
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‘It’s incredible’: Rachael Blackmore takes first Queen Mother Champion Chase victory
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‘He deserves this’: Willie Mullins scores big in the Cheltenham Festival Champion Hurdle
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‘It’s huge for the yard’: local trainer relishes long-awaited win at Cheltenham Festival
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‘Wonderful little horse’ – who can be a ‘nightmare’ to train – makes history at the Cheltenham Festival
Celebrating Cheltenham’s legendary horses
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Golden Miller: the five-time Cheltenham Gold Cup winner whose parents never won a race
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Arkle: the ‘immortal’ racing superstar who won three Cheltenham Gold Cups
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Cheltenham Gold Cup heroes: Best Mate – ‘We used to get piles of letters and cards for him sent by fans’
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Cheltenham Gold Cup heroes: Kauto Star – ‘Without any doubt he was the horse of a lifetime’
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Cheltenham Festival heroes: Istabraq – ‘He gave us brilliant days and great memories’
Memorable Cheltenham Festival moments
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‘I can’t believe it’: Rachael Blackmore becomes first female to win Cheltenham Gold Cup
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Rachael Blackmore becomes first female to claim Cheltenham Festival leading jockey title
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Best Mate makes Gold Cup history
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Kauto Star regains Cheltenham Gold Cup crown
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Honeysuckle provides poignant victory on fairytale end to her career
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‘An absolute superstar’: Constitution Hill blitzes his Champion Hurdle rivals at the Cheltenham Festival
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.
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