Cheltenham Festival 2022: All you need to know to bet on the Festival!

Updated on 4:27pm GMT 14 March 2022

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Content Editor at Free Super Tips, Alex was born in the shadow of Old Trafford and is an avid Man Utd fan. After graduating from university he combined his love of football, writing and betting to join FST and now closely follows goings-on in all of the top European leagues.

March is a big month for sport across the board and one of the most significant events on the calendar is undoubtedly Cheltenham Festival and, with the festival just around the corner, we thought we’d give you a guide on everything you need to know about the biggest week in racing.

Want to know when and where Cheltenham Festival is, how to bet on it and what the highlights of the week are? Read on to find out.

When does Cheltenham Festival start?

Cheltenham Festival 2022 is a four-day jumps meeting running from Tuesday, 15th March to Friday, 18th March at Cheltenham Racecourse.

Things kick off with the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at 1:30pm on the Tuesday, running throughout the week before culminating in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockey’s Handicap Hurdle at 5:30pm on Friday.

Where to watch Cheltenham Festival

The majority of the races can be watched live on ITV throughout the week and there will also be morning preview shows for each of the four days of Cheltenham Festival.

Those races that aren’t broadcast on ITV can be found on Racing TV and if you are backing any horses you can watch the races free on the Racing Post app after logging into one of your bookmaker accounts.

What are the Cheltenham Festival highlights?

Tuesday, 15th March – The Champion Hurdle

Taking place at 3:30pm on the opening day of Cheltenham Festival, The Unibet Champion Hurdle Challenge Trophy takes centre stage on Tuesday.

It was won by the excellent Honeysuckle last year and the undefeated mare is huge odds-on favourite to defend her title.

Wednesday, 16th March – The Champion Chase

Ladies Day brings us The Betway Queen Mother Champion Steeple Chase at 3:30pm and this is a battle of British versus Irish in one of the highlights of the week on day two.

Shishkin is the odds-on favourite but will face stiff competition from Energumene at 3/1, while Chacun Pour Soi is best of the rest at 7/2.

Thursday, 17th March – The Stayers’ Hurdle

The three-mile Sun Racing Stayers’ Hurdle is the event to look out for on St Patrick’s Day and defending champion Flooring Porter is favourite to take the prize again, although this is by no means a foregone conclusion.

Flooring Porter is 5/2 but is followed closely by Thyme Hill (7/2), Klassical Dream (4/1) and Champ (9/2), with the latter two being former festival winners themselves.

Friday, 18th March – The Gold Cup

The highlight of the week comes around at 3:30pm on the final day of the festival with The Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Minella Indo returns after winning the most prestigious race of the week last year and is third-favourite at 5/1, with A Plus Tard (5/2) and Galvin (7/2) leading the market ahead of Minella Indo.

Cheltenham Festival 2022 betting offers

It’s early days but Sky Bet already have a fantastic sign-up offer in place with £25 in free bets for Cheltenham when you bet £5 or more. There will be plenty more to come throughout the week, though, so stay tuned and we’ll keep you up to date!

You can always check out our Free Bets page for all the latest bookmaker offers, too.

Will FST be posting Cheltenham Festival tips?

Yes!

Not only will we have our ante-post acca for all the feature races on each day, but we’ll be bringing you accumulators and NAPs every day courtesy of Racing Post’s Keith Melrose.

Keep tabs on our horse racing tips page for all the latest.