Find the best tips and picks for the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle from our experts. Discover winner and each-way predictions to add to your betslip.
Our racing experts have provided their Cheltenham betting tips for the Champion Hurdle. Simply add them to your betslip, or access real-time updates with the Betway app – available on the Play Store and the App Store.
The Cheltenham Festival gets underway on Tuesday, seven races scheduled from the Prestbury Park venue, including three Grade 1s.
The feature race of day one is the Champion Hurdle, nine runners still declared at the five-day stage, including last year’s winner, Golden Ace.
Our expert has previewed the race, providing his NAP and Next Best.
Champion Hurdle tips and predictions
Selection: Golden Ace @ 8/1
Next Best: Brighterdaysahead @ 4/1
Trip concerns for The New Lion
With no Constitution Hill, Sir Geno or State Man, it’s fair to say that Tuesday’s Champion Hurdle falls short of the race it might have been. However, with only 12lb separating the nine entries at the five-day stage, it’s certainly one of the most open renewals in living memory.
Dan Skelton’s The New Lion looks set to go off favourite, last season’s Turners Novices’ Hurdle winner bidding to provide his owner, JP McManus with an unprecedented 10th win in the race following the successes of Istabraq (1998, 1999, 2000), Binocular (2010), Jezki (2014), Buveur D’Air (2017, 2018), Espoir d’Allen (2019) and Epatante (2020).
The seven-year-old won the Grade 2 International Hurdle on the New Course here in January, but the bare form of that (a length-and-a-half defeat of Nemean Lion and Brentford Hope) isn’t anything out of the ordinary. There’s also a doubt about the gelding being fully effective at this trip, his heavy fall at the second-last in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle in November, his first attempt at the distance over hurdles, highlights those concerns.
Ace set for repeat
A total of eight mares have won the Champion Hurdle since its inaugural running in 1927, the last five of those coming from 2016 onwards – Annie Power (2016), Epatante (2020), Honeysuckle (2021, 2022) and Golden Ace (2026).
It’s highly probable we’ll see another on Tuesday with Willie Mullins’ Lossiemouth, Gordon Elliott’s Brighterdayshead and Jeremy Scott’s reigning champion GOLDEN ACE all still entered.
Brighterdaysahead is the highest rated horse in the race (160) and she’ll be extremely hard to beat if running to that figure in receipt of a hugely valuable 7lb mares’ allowance. However, the seven-year-old was 5/2 second favourite 12 months ago and ran well below expectations, weakening quickly from two out and unable to take advantage of the falls of either Constitution Hill or State Man, leaving Golden Ace to pick up the pieces.
Indeed, Scott’s mare has defeated Brighterdaysahead the two times they’ve met, both at the festival, having won the Grade 2 Dawn Run Novices’ Hurdle in 2024.
The daughter of Golden Horn has form figures of 1131 in her four visits to Cheltenham and she’s a strong stayer at this trip, which is key given this track’s stiff uphill finish.
Lossiemouth was no match for Brighterdaysahead in the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown last month, the seven-year-old showing a tendency to hang markedly left under pressure on the heavy ground. A return to a quicker surface should be in her favour, though her participation is in some doubt with the daughter of Great Pretender odds-on for the Close Brothers’ Mares’ Hurdle on Thursday.
There’s the potential for a big price to sneak into the frame, Joe Tizzard’s progressive Alexei, a ready winner of the Greatwood Hurdle over course-and-distance in November, preferred to last month’s runaway Newbury handicap winner, Tutti Quanti. The latter lacked gears at a vital stage in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on this day last year and will be vulnerable back up in grade on quicker ground.
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