Cheltenham Festival 2027 Guide: Dates, Days, Races and How to Follow

The 2027 dates at a glance

Where: Cheltenham Racecourse, Prestbury Park, Evesham Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 4SH. The course is owned by The Jockey Club and holds 67,500.

Naming note: Wednesday has also been promoted as "Style Wednesday" in recent years. We use Ladies Day here because the official status of the alternative name is unconfirmed.

Start times: in recent years the first race has gone off at 1.20pm with the day's feature at around 4.00pm. Those times come from secondary sources. The Jockey Club sets the 2027 order of running; this page will be updated when it is published.

28 races, seven a day

You will see "27 races" quoted in places. The official event schedule lists 28 — seven on each of the four days — and the 2025 programme changes (below) altered race conditions without dropping a race.

The tables below give the type, distance and grade for each race, in the 2026 Festival's actual running order (verified against the official Sporting Life result pages for 10–13 March 2026). The 2027 order of running has not been published, so we use 2026's order as the best available guide — the sequence, sponsor titles and even the day a race falls on can all change once The Jockey Club confirms 2027. Read the distance column with one caveat: only the four championship distances are verified to the yard. The other 24 come from our race database at the same furlong-level precision published in past racecards.

Day 1 — Champion Day (Tuesday 16 March, Old Course)

Day 2 — Ladies Day (Wednesday 17 March, Old Course)

The Coral Cup ran as the "BetMGM Cup Handicap Hurdle" in 2026's result listing; we could not confirm from the result page alone that this was the Coral Cup under a new sponsor rather than a different race in the same slot, so treat that identification as unconfirmed.

Day 3 — St Patrick's Thursday (Thursday 18 March, New Course)

Both mares' races — the novices' hurdle and the championship Mares' Hurdle — ran on Thursday in 2026, not split across the week as in some earlier years. We found no official statement explaining the change; it is simply what the 2026 result pages show.

Day 4 — Gold Cup Day (Friday 19 March, New Course)

The Albert Bartlett is run over the same distance as the Stayers' Hurdle (2m 7f 213y) — a stiffer test than its "3m" nickname suggests. "Foxhunter" is the race's long-standing common name; its 2026 result page listed it as the Princess Royal Challenge Cup Open Hunters' Chase, so we could not directly confirm "Foxhunter" as a current registered title.

The four championship races

One championship race anchors each day. All four distances below are verified to the yard.

Three of the four championship races were the fifth of their day's seven in 2026; the Stayers' Hurdle was the fourth. Off times are shown for reference only — the 2027 order of running, and therefore these times, has not been published.

Three of the four 2026 championships went to Willie Mullins and Paul Townend. Our race-by-race guides — Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Stayers' Hurdle — carry the last ten winners of each and what those tables actually show.

What changed in 2025 — and still applies in 2027

The 2025 Festival introduced the biggest set of programme changes in years. No race was dropped.

Why it matters for betting: three more handicaps means three more races where the weights, not just raw ability, shape the result — and where bookmakers' handicap each-way place terms apply.

Old Course v New Course

The Cross Country course sits inside the main track, with banks, ditches, rails and the "cheese wedges" introduced in November 2009. Cross-country racing at Cheltenham dates from 1995 and there are three such chases each season (November, December and the Festival).

Sponsors you will see in 2027

• Boodles has sponsored the Gold Cup since 2022 and is contracted through 2027.
• The Tuesday handicap chase is now the Trustmarque Ultima Handicap Chase.
• Other race titles change with sponsorship; we use registered names where the 2027 sponsor is not yet confirmed.

How to follow the 2027 Festival

1. Dates and order of running — bookmark the 2027 hub and the schedule; both update when The Jockey Club publishes official times.
2. The going — soft has been the opening-day description in four of the last five Festivals. Our going explainer covers the scale and how to read race-week changes.
3. Ante-post markets — open from now until declarations. Read the ante-post guide before committing a stake months ahead; indicative 2027 prices reported by third parties are labelled as such on our race pages.
4. Racecards and declarations — final declarations are made 48 hours before each race; see racecards.
5. Results and the Prestbury Cup — our results pages and the Prestbury Cup explainer (Ireland won 15–13 in 2026).
6. Records — Willie Mullins (121 Festival winners) and Paul Townend (42) are the trainer and jockey the 2027 markets will revolve around.

What we have not verified yet

We publish gaps rather than guess. As of 14 September 2026:

• The official 2027 order of running and race times — the tables above use 2026's verified order as a provisional guide, not a 2027 announcement.
• Whether the Mares' Hurdle and Mares' Novices' Hurdle will again both run on Thursday in 2027, as they did in 2026.
• Distances to the yard for the 24 non-championship races.
• The official naming status of "Style Wednesday".
• Whether "BetMGM Cup Handicap Hurdle" (Day 2) is the Coral Cup under a new sponsor, and whether "Foxhunter" remains the race's current registered title.

This page carries a fact-check status of in progress until those are confirmed against the official racecard.