Weatherbys Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide 2025

The 2025 Weatherbys Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide, written by Paul Ferguson and Guest Authors, is the complete guide to The Festival, with every fact, stat and trend covered to help you make the most informed bets throughout the best week of the year.

Last year’s guide featured gems like these.

Banker or Bust, by Rory Delargy

• Brown Advisory Novices' Chase - STAY AWAY FAY, Bust - failed to complete
• Gold Cup - GALOPIN DES CHAMPS, Banker - won his second Gold Cup

Spring Horses To Follow

• Ballyburn - won Baring Bingham Novices' Hurdle (and Grade 1 at Punchestown)
• Golden Ace - won the Dawn Run Mares' Novices' Hurdle @ 10/1 (and at Cheltenham's April meeting)
• Sir Gino - won the Anniversary 4-Y-O Juvenile Hurdle at Aintree
• Spillane's Tower - won Grade 1s at Fairyhouse (7-4) and Punchestown (5-2)
  

Selected Trends/Stats

• Baring Bingham Novices' Hurdle - horses who have won a P2P, bumper and Graded novice hurdle are 7-15 during the past 14 years - BALLYBURN was the only horse to match up against this
• Ryanair Chase - PROTEKTORAT matched up against several key trends, including 'The past 10 winners were French-bred'
• Triumph Hurdle - MAJBOROUGH matched up against several key trends, including '7 of the past 9 winners started their careers in France' and '8 of the past 12 winners contested the Spring Juvenile Hurdle (only 3 were successful)'

Keeping' It Fresh For Aintree

'Olly Murphy's Strong Leader featured on these very pages in 2023, after winning a trio of novice hurdles. At the time, it seemed likely that he might skip Cheltenham and wait for Aintree - where he had won earlier in the season - but he ended up taking his chance in the Supreme, before heading to Aintree, where he finished very strongly in the Top Novices' Hurdle.......

.....The seven-year-old would need to be supplemented if he were to run in the Stayers' Hurdle, but I would personally prefer to see him freshened up and targeted at the Liverpool Hurdle, which will be a more realistic target, with there likely to be less of an Irish challenge.'

Strong Leader bypassed Cheltenham and won the Liverpool Hurdle @ 8-1.

The Guide once again includes the Grand National Festival Betting Guide, featuring on all Grade 1s and the Grand National itself.