Everything you need to know ahead of the Cheltenham Festival

It’s almost time as anticipation builds for one of the biggest horse racing spectacles on the calendar with the Cheltenham Festival starting on Tuesday.

Racing fans from across the globe will head to Prestbury Park for the big event and there are plenty of talking points ahead of what is set to be a bumper festival.

To celebrate this year’s Cheltenham, Betfair are offering customers a completely FREE racing multi every day of the festival.

The Cheltenham Gold Cup is always the pinnacle event of the 4 days of racing action, and Galopin Des Champs at 1/2 will be looking to win the race for a third time on the spin, while it would be a fifth winner in seven years for jockey Paul Townend and trainer Willie Mullins. Victory would also put Townend in the history books as the first jockey to win 5 Gold Cups.

On Day 1 of the Festival, Gordon Elliott confirmed Brighterdaysahead (2/1) will go head-to-head with Constitution Hill (4/7) in the Champion Hurdle in what is set to be a very hot race which also includes State Man (10/1).

Jonbon (8/11) will likely go off favourite in the Queen Mother Champion Chase after a commanding performance in defeating Energumene in the Clarence House at Ascot in January, who he’ll go up against again, potentially along with the likes of Il Est Francais (4/1), Marine Nationale (6/1) and Gaelic Warrior (6/1).

The Ryanair Steeple Chase is the big race on Day 3, which looks like a wide open contest. Ireland’s Fact to File (6/4) heads the market but with many owners and trainers yet to decide which races to opt for, the challengers could well come from previous Festival winner Protektorat – a horse owned by none other than former Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Last year trainer Willie Mullins passed the incredible landmark of 100 winners at the Festival and has a number of strong fancies this year to add to that, with the likes of Galopin Des Champs (Gold Cup), Kopek Des Moates (Supreme Novices’ Hurdle) and Majborough (Arkle) all likely to go off favourites.

All in all, it’s set to be another incredible Festival and the wait is almost over for that famous Cheltenham roar. Make sure you’ve signed up to Betfair to claim your daily FREE multi for the Festival.

Odds correct as of Monday 10 March at 11.30am. Odds subject to change. 18+ T&Cs Apply. GambleAware

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