Cheltenham 2019: Live Streaming And Betting Odds

Cheltenham Racecourse at Prestbury Park in Gloucestershire is the home of National Hunt racing. It stages the Cheltenham Festival in March which features 28 championship races including the Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle.

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Racing was established at Prestbury Park in 1831 with the National Hunt festival of racing being run here from 1911 onwards. The course underwent a £45 million redevelopment in 2015 and can now accommodate 67,500 racegoers.

An estimated £300 million in bets are placed during the Cheltenham Festival which now offers over £4 million in prize money and brings around £100 million to the local economy. Cheltenham odds are available throughout the year on the big races. The highlight of the week is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the blue riband event of steeplechasing.

Golden Miller won the race for five consecutive seasons between 1932 and 1936. Arkle (1964 – 1966) and Best Mate (2002 – 2004) each won the Gold Cup for three years’ running. Other notable winners include Dawn Run (1986), Desert Orchid (1989) and Kauto Star (2007 and 2009). Dawn Run’s victory under Jonjo O’Neill was greeted by wild celebrations as she became the first horse in history to win the Champion Hurdle (1984) and Gold Cup.

Desert Orchid was one of the biggest Cheltenham tips for many years and his brave win is regarded as one of the best races ever seen at the festival. The 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup was dominated by Michael Dickinson who trained the first five horses to finish. The longest priced winner of the Gold Cup in recent times was Norton’s Coin at odds of 100-1 in 1990.

The Champion Hurdle is the second biggest Cheltenham betting race with a strong ante-post market. Istabraq became the fifth horse to win the Champion Hurdle on three occasions when completing a hat-trick of wins in 2000. The horse was favourite for a record fourth win in 2001 but the meeting was abandoned due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

Sea Pigeon was another horse to feature strongly in Cheltenham tips when winning his second Champion Hurdle in 1981. He was eleven-years-old and equalled the age record set by Hatton’s Grace in 1951. His victory came in a golden age for hurdling with other famous winners including Night Nurse (1976, 1977) and Monksfield (1978, 1979).

The oldest surviving championship race is the Stayers Hurdle which was first run in 1912. Paul Nicholls trained Big Buck’s to win this race for four successive seasons between 2009 and 2012. The longest winning sequence at the Cheltenham Festival belongs to Quevega.

The brilliant mare regularly featured in Cheltenham predictions as the banker bet of the week. She won the Mares’ Hurdle for six successive seasons (2009 – 2014). Badsworth Boy won the Queen Mother Champion Chase for three consecutive years between 1983 and 1985. Other top races include the Triumph Hurdle for four-year-olds and the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase over two miles and five furlongs. Novice chasers race over two miles in the Arkle Challenge Trophy and three miles in the RSA Chase.

There are also jockey and trainer championships at the Festival meeting for those with the most winners. Ruby Walsh won the jockeys’ title for the eleventh time in 2016. The previous year he had matched his own record of riding seven winners at the meeting. Nicky Henderson is always popular with Cheltenham punters. He set a record seven winners as a trainer in 2012 but that has since been beaten by Irish trainers Willie Mullins (2015) and Gordon Elliott (2018) with eight winners each.

Race meetings at Cheltenham start in October with high profile races in November and December. The January fixture is Trials Day as horses continue their preparation for the Cheltenham Festival. The first five races at the Cheltenham Festival are shown live on ITV with the remaining two races on Racing TV. The meeting can also be viewed through livestreaming on sports betting sites with Cheltenham Radio broadcasting live from 10am each morning.

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