The what’s what and the who’s who of Cheltenham Festival 2024
Cheltenham Festival will be soon upon and this article will help you get a better understanded of the festival and be able to keep up to date with all the who’s who and what’s what over the next couple of weeks.
The Courses
The race course at Cheltenham boasts two main, separate courses which sit alongside each other. The Old Course and The New Course as well as the Cross Country course. Both course are ran left-handed. Cheltenham is famed for it uphill finish in front the grandstand and the fences are known to be stiff and take some jumping – especially the tricky downhill jump 3 from home.
The Old Course, which is used for the first 2 days of the festival, is a sharper course than the New Course and horses that are front runners or run prominently tend to fare well. The New Course, which is used for the last 2 days of the festival, is a stiffer track and favours horses with better stamina and for this reason hold up horses tend to fare well.
Form this season
The form over the current season is a good indicate for which horses, trainers, and jockeys enjoy running at Cheltenham. Below is a list that should help you when looking at the form. 6-10 means that 6 out of 10 races have been won and the 60% means a 60% strike rate.
Top Jockey:
- Harry Cobden 8-36 22%
- Keith Donoghue 5-14 36%
- Nico de Boinville 5-18 28%
- Adam Wedge 3-9 33%
- James Bowen 3-14 21%
Top Trainer:
- Gavin Cromwell 7-19 37%
- Nicky Henderson 7-28 25%
- Paul Nicholls 5-34 15%
- W P Mullins 3-7 23%
- Henry De Bromhead 3-11 27%
Top Owner:
- John P McManus 4-23 17%
- Gordon & Su Hall 3-5 60%
- Julian Sherriff 2-2 100%
- Alymer Stud 2-2 100%
- McNeill Family & Ralston Family 2-2 100%
Form over last 5 years
A more realistic few of form and perhaps who has a good strike rate over the Cheltenham festival across the last 5 years can be found below.
Top Jockey:
- Nico de Boinville 23-133 17%
- Sam Twiston-Davies 21-186 11%
- Paul Townsend 20-82 24%
- Harry Skelton 19-178 11%
- Harry Cobden 18-183 10%
Top Trainer:
- Nicky Henderson 37 -234 16%
- W P Mullins 34-265 13%
- Dan Skelton 21-228 9%
- Henry De Bromhead 20-122 16%
- Gordon Elliott 20-213 9%
Top Owner:
- John P McManus 28-225 12%
- Cheveley Park Stud 9-22 41%
- Simon Munir & Isaac Souede 8-81 10%
- Mrs J Donnelly 7-35 20%
- Mrs S Ricci 6-42 14%
Hopefully this information will help inform you on your choice next week and could indicate some trends across the next couple of weeks. Be sure to check my other articles where we look at some course specialist as well as going into detail in some of the big races coming up in the next couple of weeks. To keep update with my selections be sure to follow me on Twitter The Sporacle (@Sporacle_) / X (twitter.com)