Cheltenham Festival
cheltenhamfestival.net is your complete guide to the Cheltenham Festival and an indispensable aid to finding the winners of some of the most prestigious horse races anywhere in the world. Click here to bookmark this site.
The 25 races that make up the Cheltenham Festival are the most hotly contested of the entire racing calendar, with around 500 horses competing for in excess of £3 million of win and place prize money.
The week climaxes with the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday, while other highlights include Tuesday's Champion Hurdle, Wednesday's Queen Mother Champion Chase and the World Hurdle on Thursday.
Whatever the weather, spring arrives in Gloucestershire at precisely 2pm on the first Tuesday of the Festival. Helicopters clatter in over Cleeve Hill, the first of 200,000 pints of Guinness are sunk and spectators roar off the start of the first race at the Festival. That tradition, invented by the crowd, encompasses a range of emotions: from the relief of the racing community that Cheltenham has come round again, after months of effort from trainers, work riders and stable staff to ensure their charges are at a peak of fitness; to the exhilaration of the crowd at the thought of what lies ahead: four days of drama, effort and excess that will test both wallets and livers.
There are no more thrilling sporting sights than a huge field tearing down the hill in the Triumph Hurdle, jostling for a gap at nearly 40 miles an hour or the jockeys in the Queen Mother Champion Chase driving their mounts into the last fence, asking for one final effort as they seek momentum for the lung-draining climb back up to the finishing post. And all enveloped in a wall of partisan sound. Most spectators have their own precious memory of a favourite contest, a winner heftily backed, a moment of glory etched on the memory forever. Perhaps the older ones were there for the epic Gold Cup contests in the 1960s between the incomparable Arkle and the brave Mill House; others for the popular grey Desert Orchid’s triumph in 1989 or for the third of Best Mate’s big race victories in 2004.
Our site contains everything you need to know about these four magical days in March, when the whole racing community converges on Prestbury Park for the Olympics of National Hunt racing. Our 2008 race reviews will be added to the website shortly, but in the meantime you can watch a video of every race of what proved to be a very eventful 2008 Festival.
This year the Cheltenham Festival will mostly be remembered for both the gales that led to the abandonment of day 2 and also the awesome performance of Denman in winning the 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup, triumphing 
in his much heralded battle with 2007 champion Kauto Star. We are already looking forward to their re-match in the 2009 Gold Cup where Kauto Star will attempt to turn the tables on his stablemate!
Our race previews section contains an in-depth analysis of each race at Cheltenham providing invaluable guidance on how to find Festival winners.
In making our selections, we pay special attention to the patterns that have developed over the years, as Cheltenham is such a unique course and the races at the Festival have their own characteristics. Certainly, history repeats itself at the Cheltenham Festival more than any other meeting. Our careful analysis of these trends enable us to whittle down large fields to a few prime contenders - whether they are short or long odds. Of course, you can then decide whether to follow our tips or use your own intuition to make your final selections, however we have enjoyed some remarkable success in recent years. Here are just a few of the pointers you could have found on the site over the last couple of years:
2007 Champion Hurdle – "Sublimity has a good combination of speed and stamina and will be suited by the way the race is run…Afsoun could prove best of the outsiders." Sublimity won at 16/1 (available at 50/1 when the preview was posted) and Afsoun was third at 28/1.
2007 Brit Insurance Hurdle – "Wichita Lineman looks like being many people’s banker of the Festival and he is hard to oppose. He seems to have all the attributes necessary to land this event...it is not hard to see an outsider making the frame and the one to follow could be Air Force One." Wichita Lineman won by 12 lengths at 11/8 and Air Force One was second at 25/1.
2007 Jewson Handicap – "L’Antartique’s trainer Ferdy Murphy had an excellent Festival last season...this looks like his trip and if the stable’s horses are again showing signs of form at the Festival he could be worth an interest at a big price". L’Antartique won at 20/1.
Our Big Race Trends section highlights the trial races run throughout the season that throw up most winners. There are also Key Trends for each race, for example in 2007 our preview 
section on the National Hunt Chase identified the fact that:
"Jonjo O’Neill trained horses have won 3 of the last 5 runnings of the National Hunt Chase….so it’s well worth considering his entries in that race". Butler’s Cabin then went on to win last year’s renewal for Jonjo at odds of 33/1!
We also list statistics for both Jockeys and Trainers, with Tony McCoy and Nicky Henderson currently heading their respective fields. However, it is emerging trainers that are often worth following and we were one of the first tipping services to recognise the ability of Ferdy Murphy to prepare horses to run the race of their lives at the Festival. To prove the point, Joes Edge then won the 2007 William Hill Trophy Handicap Chase at 50/1 and L´Antartique won the 2007 Jewson Novices Handicap Chase at 20/1!
Finally, for those wanting to join in the pilgrimage to the Mecca of National Hunt racing, we have all the information you’ll need to make the most of your visit, including Ticket details and information on all of the Enclosures and facilities at the racecourse.