Cheltenham Festival Betting Previews: Cheltenham Gold Cup

Few would argue that the Cheltenham Festival is the highlight of the National Hunt season and, likewise, that the Cheltenham Gold Cup is the highlight of the Cheltenham Festival. The most valuable and prestigious race of its kind run in Britain, the Cheltenham Gold Cup has been won down the years by such legendary names as Golden Miller, Cottage Rake, Arkle, Best Mate and Kauto Star, to name but a handful.

In 2025, Gallopin Des Champs, trained by Willie Mullins, is likely to stake his own claim for Festival immortality by becoming the first horse since Best Mate, in 2004, and just the fifth horse ever, to complete a Gold Cup hat-trick. Still only a nine-year-old, Gallopin Des Champs was an impressive winner of the Savills Chase at Leopardstown over Christmas and confirmed the form with his stable companion Fact To File in the Irish Gold Cup, over the same course and distance, in February.

At a top-priced 4/7 ante-post, the bookmakers are taking few chances but, with Fact To File (7/1) likely to run in the Ryanair Chase than the Cheltenham Gold Cup, punters may be clutching at straws to find a viable alternative when it comes to Cheltenham Festival betting odds. On good ground, it might be possible to make a case for the King George Chase winner Banbridge (8/1), trained by Joseph O’Brien, for all that the New Course at Cheltenham is vastly different from Kempton Park. At longer odds, L’Homme Presse (20/1), trained by Venetia Williams, was third at Kempton and fourth in the 2024 Cheltenham Gold Cup and has an each-way squeak.

Cheltenham Festival Free Bet Offer:  https://blog.betway.com/horse-racing/countdown-to-cheltenham-earn-over-pound100-in-free-bets-1/