![\"Cheltenham](\"https:\/\/cheltenhambettingsites.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Cheltenham_races_today.jpg\" "\\"Cheltenham")
\nThe greatness of Cheltenham races today owes much to the track’s status as the home of National Hunt racing. It is an iconic sporting theatre that serves up drama in every aspect of jump racing with hurdle races and steeplechases joining bumpers and even Cross Country events at its Prestbury Park location.<\/p>\n
In this complete guide to Cheltenham Racecourse, we look back over the history of this premier horse racing venue. So that you understand it better, we also touch on the different tracks used for races and profile all key meetings taking place here.<\/p>\n
Although the present site for Cheltenham races today opened in 1902, Cleeve Hill overlooking the Prestbury Park site<\/a> staged meetings some 80 years prior from 1818. Other locations used in between include Andoversford and the other side of Prestbury Village to the south and east of where the track is now.<\/p>\n The Grand Annual Chase, the oldest of Cheltenham Festival races today, had its initial running in 1834. From 1913 onwards, this made a permanent home at Prestbury Park. Two years earlier, the National Hunt Chase did the same. That first took place in the Cheltenham area in 1861.<\/p>\n After completing a grandstand at Prestbury Park just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Festival started taking proper shape in the 1920s. While a forerunner of the Stayers’ Hurdle dates back to 1912 and the County Hurdle to 1920, the Cheltenham Gold Cup inaugurated in 1924 and Champion Hurdle three years later helped fully establish the meeting.<\/p>\n Fast forward to 1959, and Cheltenham added the Champion Chase to the Festival. This became the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1980. Some of the big handicaps at Cheltenham races today date back to the early 1960s. The Paddy Power Gold Cup as the Mackeson Gold Cup began in 1960 with the December Gold Cup following three years later.<\/p>\n Cheltenham Racecourse extended the Festival to four days from three in 2005. This meant the creation of the Ryanair Chase and a number of other races on the Cheltenham schedule<\/a> subsequently. The meeting continues to evolve to this very day with tweaks and changes to the race programme ensuring the most competitive jumps action.<\/p>\n There are three different tracks for races at Cheltenham today with each in use during the Festival. These are the Old Course, New Course and Cross Country Course. Each sees the horses race on a left-handed track. Action on the Old and New Courses unfolds on undulating, testing tracks that suit galloping types.<\/p>\n The New Course has less jumping at the business end of hurdle races. There are just two flights in the last seven furlongs (almost a mile) on the hurdles track. Both punters using and traders pricing up markets on Cheltenham betting sites<\/a> must remember that. Both Old and New Courses climb Cleeve Hill in the back straight then come downhill before turning for home, but it’s uphill again all the way to the winning post.<\/p>\n Stamina in horses is essential for Cheltenham races today as a result. The Old Course is about a mile-and-a-half for a complete circuit and the New Course slightly longer. Hurdle races feature six flights jumped per full lap, regardless of the track. Both the Champion Hurdle and County Hurdle, the biggest two-mile events of this type at the Festival feature eight hurdles. The Stayers’ Hurdle has 12 flights.<\/p>\n Steeplechases include more jumps, meanwhile. The Queen Mother Champion Chase has 13 fences with four in the home straight first time around. In the back straight on the Old Course, after jumping a cross fence there is a line of three obstacles. These are a plain fence, water jump and open ditch. Horses take all of these on the other track too.<\/p>\n There is no cross fence on the New Course, but both tracks feature another open ditch at the top of Cleeve Hill. The downhill fence three out is the one that catches some horses out with Cue Card famously falling<\/a> twice at this obstacle during the Festival. That leaves just two plain fences in the home straight before the finish line.<\/p>\n On the Cross Country Course in the middle of the track, meanwhile, there are a variety of obstacles to jump. These include banks, ditches, hedges and stuffed hurdles. There is also an Aintree style Grand National type fence. Cross Country races go in a figure of eight circuit for three laps before joining Cheltenham Racecourse proper for the closing stages.<\/p>\n Not including the Hunter Chase Evening that takes place outside of the core National Hunt season, there are seven fixtures in the jumps racing calendar at Cheltenham races today. These begin during the autumn in October with The Showcase and end at springtime with the April Meeting. Both of those, like the Christmas \/ December Meeting, are two-day fixtures.<\/p>\n The November Meeting is three days, meanwhile. That puts it as the second longest fixture behind the Cheltenham Festival at the track. There are two standalone racedays in January as well. The first one takes place on New Year’s Day, while Festival Trials Day is the last Saturday of the month.<\/p>\n Each of these meetings in the run-up to the Festival can influence the markets and Cheltenham odds<\/a> for the big one. This is because recognised trials take place and horses obtain vital course experience.<\/p>\n As for the Cheltenham Festival itself, that runs for four consecutive days in the middle of March. That fixture isn’t just the big one at Prestbury Park but for the entire jumps racing industry. The table below recaps all of these key dates for Cheltenham Racecourse events and fixtures:<\/p>\nConfiguration of Cheltenham Races Today<\/h2>\n
Stiff Cheltenham Fences on All Courses<\/h3>\n
Key Cheltenham Racecourse Events & Fixtures<\/h2>\n