The Cheltenham Festival 2024 will kick off on Tuesday 12th March and run for four days through to Gold Cup day on Friday 15th March.
At the Cheltenham Festival 2024 (12-15 March) we won’t see Honeysuckle, who brought the curtain down on her phenomenal career with an emotional victory in the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle.
Owner Kenny Alexander later confirmed his remarkable mare will be retired as he reflected on her fourth Festival win, calling it his “best ever day in racing”.
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At the other end of the career spectrum is superstar hurdler Constitution Hill, who is currently a best price 11/10 to defend his Champion Hurdle crown after romping to a nine-length success as a 4/11 favourite in Tuesday's feature race.
The six-year-old is 33/1 for the Cheltenham Gold Cup 2024, with Galopin Des Champs 4/1 to defend the title he won in so impressively from Bravemansgame this afternoon.
Some of the best examples of good hurdlers going on to make even better chasers in recent times would be Faugheen (pictured above), Altior, Sprinter Sacre, Bobs Worth and Minella Indo (Gold Cup winner in 2021). The pick of the pile, however, would be Dawn Run, who is the only horse to complete the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup double.
Elsewhere, Energumene is a 5/1 shot to secure a Champion Chase hat-trick in 2024, trailing only 2023 Arkle winner El Fabiolo in the early ante-post market - the six-year-old who dispatched of Jonbon so convincingly on Tuesday.
In total, we are expecting a repeat 28 races across the four days at the Cheltenham Festival 2024. 13 of those are run over the smaller obstacles and 13 over the larger obstacles, while there is a single flat race - the Champion Bumper (won in 2022 by A Dream To Share) - and the Cross Country Chase (won by Delta Work), held on specialist obstacles in the centre of the course.
The four feature races across the Cheltenham Festival are all are classed as 'Championship' races - the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday, Champion Chase on Wednesday, Stayers' Hurdle on Thursday and the Cheltenham Gold Cup on the closing Friday.
