What Are The Best 2025 Cheltenham Festival Races For Favourites?

If you are looking to have a wager on the best four days of jumps racing around, then you might want to know what the best 2025 Cheltenham Festival races are for the favourites.

To help, we’ve looked back at the last eleven Cheltenham Festivals and the records of the favourites for EVERY race.

We can then easily see which races have the best records for the market leaders winning – plus there are a few Festival races that have poor strike-rates for the jolly.

Champion Hurdle and Arkle Challenge Trophy Have Been The Best Cheltenham Races For Favourite Backers

In the last eleven years, the two standout races for backing a Cheltenham Festival favourite have been the Champion Hurdle and Arkle Challenge Trophy.

Both are run on day one of the Festival (Tues) too, so in recent years favourite backers have been taking the best horse racing betting sites in the UK to the cleaners.

This is backed up with a massive 8 of the last 11 renewals of BOTH races going to the favourite – meaning a stonking 73% return.

The last non-favourite to win the Champion Hurdle was 16/1 shot Espoir D’Allen in 2019, so the race is currently on a five-year winning jollies spree.

12 months ago, State Man added to the market leaders record in the Champion Hurdle – winning at 2/5 (watch below).

This year’s Champion Hurdle favourite is former winner Constitution Hill, who is one of the 2025 Cheltenham bankers and will be looking to become the first horse to REGAIN the day one feature since Hurricane Fly in 2013.

Gaelic Warrior Upheld The Top Arkle Favourites Record In 2024

The Arkle Challenge Trophy is also on a similar run to the Champion Hurdle at the moment – with the last four favourites going in.

Just like the Champion Hurdle – the last non-Arkle winning jolly was also a 16/1 shot, which was Put The Kettle On back in 2020.

Since then, we’ve had Shishkin, Edwardstone, El Fabiolo win – and, as mentioned, Gaelic Warrior 12 months ago (watch below).

All this means with 8 of the last 11 Arkle market leaders winning, this popular day one Festival race is the t-best contest (with the Champion Hurdle) for winning favourites.

Many feel this top record will also continue in 2025 with red-hot Arkle favourite Majborough another big Festival banker this year.

His task has been made easier with Sir Gino missing the race and if successful would be the seventh win in the Arkle for trainer Willie Mullins.

Majborough also won at the Festival last year – when taking the Triumph Hurdle and strangely will be bidding to become the first horse to win both races at this meeting EVER.

While, can you believe, he’s also looking to give his owner JP McManus a first success in this race – having gone close with the likes of Jonbon and Fakir d’Oudairies in the past.

Cheltenham Festival Day One (Tues): Favourites Winning Record (Last 11 Years)

Cheltenham Festival Day Two (Weds): Favourites Winning Record (Last 11 Years)

Cheltenham Festival Day Three (Thurs): Favourites Winning Record (Last 11 Years)

Note: The Jack Richards Novices’ Handicap is a new race that has replaced the Golden Miller Novices’ Chase (Marsh Novices’ Chase)

Cheltenham Festival Day Four (Fri): Favourites Winning Record (Last 11 Years)

Note: There have only four runnings of the Mares’ Chase

Cheltenham Festival Favourites Record Summary By Day (Last 11 Years)

Over the last eleven year’s the overall record of Cheltenham Festival favourites also stands at a solid 30% – with 86 of the last 288 horses at the top of the market winning.

The best day for backing the market leaders has been on day one, with a 36% return, with Wednesday next best at 31%.

While it’s Gold Cup day (Friday) that has the worst return for market leaders – with this strike-rate dipping to just 21%.

This is because the THREE worst races for Cheltenham favourites are all currently in the final day.

We’ve not seen a winning jolly in the new Mares Chase yet (4 runs). Plus, the last time we saw a winning fav in the Martin Pipe was in 2011 (Sir Des Champs) and in the Albert Bartlett in 2013 (At Fishers Cross).