The Cheltenham Festival has seen some of the greatest horses in racing history become legends. Here, we count down the most successful horses ever at Cheltenham.
The Cheltenham Festival is arguably the biggest event of the National Hunt calendar, acting as the pinnacle of the racing season. For four days in mid-March, the drama at Prestbury Park captures audiences around the world, as world-class horses take centre stage and Cheltenham betting runs wild.
Several horses have become household names with their performances at the Cheltenham Festival over the years. Here, we recall the 10 most successful horses at Cheltenham, by manner of victories recorded at the festival, in a subjective list.
For more information about the 2026 Festival, check out our Cheltenham races guide.
The horses with the most Cheltenham wins
Here’s a brief overview of the most successful horses to ever compete at the Cheltenham Festival, based on their number of wins:
Quevega (6 wins)
Tiger Roll (5 wins)
Golden Miller (5 wins)
Arkle (4 wins), Big Buck’s (4 wins), Istabraq (4 wins), Persian War (4 wins), Sir Ken (4 wins), Altior (4 wins), Honeysuckle (4 wins)
More information about Cheltenham’s leading horses
It’s now time to learn more about how each horse earns its place on our list. Here’s our countdown of the ten most successful winners in Cheltenham history, starting with those who’ve won four titles before we move onto the top three:
Honeysuckle
Although there have been other four-time winners at Cheltenham, Honeysuckle earns the tenth spot in our list by virtue of her unbeaten record at the festival. Two Champion Hurdle victories, bookended by two wins in the Mares’ Hurdle, all of them under Rachael Blackmore, make them the Queens of the Cotswolds!
Altior
The Nicky Henderson-trained Altior stunned in the 2016 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, beating Buveur D’air, who would later claim two Champion Hurdle wins. Altior won the Arkle a year later, followed by successive Queen Mother Champion Chases in 2018 and 2019. He set the record for the longest winning streak in jumps races, with 19 victories in a row.
Sir Ken
Being a three-time Champion Hurdler winner is no easy feat, earning Sir Ken his place on our list. He won the two-mile Championship race in 1952, 1953 and 1954. Then, in 1955, he bagged his fourth Festival success in what we now know as the Arkle Challenge Trophy. Four wins in four years make for quite the CV.
Persian War
In modern times, plenty of Triumph Hurdle winners have struggled in open company, but not Persian War. He won the race in 1967 before going on to land three Champion Hurdles in the ensuing years. His winning streak brought tremendous success to his trainer, Colin Davies, and to his rider, Jimmy Uttley.
Istabraq
Four was the magic number too for the great Istabraq, who landed the Baring Bingham as a novice before winning the Champion Hurdle three times on the trot from 1998-2000. Trained by Aidan O’Brien, Istabraq is considered to be amongst the greatest two-mile hurdlers in Cheltenham history.
Big Buck’s
Sam Thomas can lay claim to the most pivotal unseat there has ever been, when he fell from Big Buck’s at the last in the 2008 Hennessy Gold Cup. That was enough to convince trainer Paul Nicholls to go back over hurdles, and the rest is history. Big Buck’s won the Stayers’ Hurdle four years in a row, returning an SP no shorter than 5/6 as bookmakers tried to take him on.
Arkle
As a four-time Festival winner in the Cotswolds, Arkle is racing royalty. Trainer Tom Dreaper helped Arkle to his first victory as a novice in the Broadway Novices’ Chase (now called the Brown Advisory) when he won by 20 lengths. He was back at Cheltenham for a hat-trick of Gold Cup triumphs from 1964-1966. He has a Festival race named in his honour and is a true great of the sport.
Cheltenham’s top three horses
Here, we dive into the three horses who’ve won at least five Cheltenham Festival races!
3. Golden Miller, 5 wins
Golden Miller holds the record for most Cheltenham Gold Cup wins, having triumphed in the Blue Riband an incredible five times from 1932 to 1936. He remains the most recent five-year-old to win the race and is the only horse ever to land the Gold Cup and Grand National at Aintree in the same season.
2. Tiger Roll, 5 wins
Tiger Roll is famous for his back-to-back Aintree Grand National wins in 2018 and 2019, but he is also a five-time Cheltenham Festival winner and a true beacon of versatility. He won the Triumph Hurdle in 2014, and three years later, landed the National Hunt Cup when it was still a true four-miler. He then added three Cross Country wins to his Aintree heroics, reinventing himself and becoming the darling of the racing public.
1. Quevega, 6 wins
Quevega is the first and only horse to win the same race at the Cheltenham Festival six years on the trot, having made the Mares’ Hurdle her own prized possession from 2009-2014. Willie Mullins’ mare often made her seasonal reappearance in this race and was a true friend to punters, never going off shorter than 4/7 during her incredible run of dominance.
The leading horses at Cheltenham 2026
There are many elite horses taking part in the 2026 Cheltenham Festival, some of whom will have the chance to put themselves on the list of most successful competitors in Cheltenham history.
One of those is Galopin Des Champs, who took the racing world by storm when he won consecutive Gold Cups in 2023 and 2024. While his potential hat trick was broken last year by Inothewayurthinkin, he’ll be looking to reclaim his crown and equal the record of three-time winners like Best Mate and Cottage Rake.
Another horse to keep an eye on is Jonbon, a Nicky Henderson-trained horse who many have seen as Constitution Hill’s successor. Jonbon has placed first or second in all of his 25 career races so far, and after finishing as a runner-up in last year’s Champion Chase, he’ll be back with a vengeance.
Ballyburn could also impress at this year’s festival, with the potential to add to the ever-growing list of Willie Mullins’ Cheltenham winners. The bay gelding already won the 2024 Baring Bingham Novices’ Hurdle, but as his star rises, he’ll be eyeing up even bigger victories in 2026.
For the latest horse racing news and more information about how to bet on Cheltenham 2026, stay tuned to the Betway Insider throughout the Festival.
