Cheltenham’s 2025 Festival turned on two upsets, Golden Ace in the Champion Hurdle and Inothewayurthinkin, added at the last minute, in the Gold Cup.
The Cheltenham Festival ran at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, from Tuesday 11 to Friday 14 March 2025, four days that jump racing treats as its championship season.
The Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, first run in 1924, is the meeting’s centrepiece. It is a steeplechase of three miles, two furlongs and 70 yards for horses aged five and older, and every jumping stable measures its year against it.
Champion Day opened with an upset. Constitution Hill, the odds-on favourite, fell in the Champion Hurdle, and Golden Ace won at 25-1 for the trainer Jeremy Scott and the jockey Lorcan Williams.
On the Friday the Triumph Hurdle went to Poniros, a 100-1 outsider and the longest-priced winner in the race’s history.
Gold Cup day brought a second upset. Galopin Des Champs, the winner in 2023 and 2024, was bidding for a third, and Inothewayurthinkin beat him by six lengths at 15-2 under Mark Walsh.
Gavin Cromwell trained the winner for J P McManus, and had added him to the race six days earlier at a cost of £25,000. The horse was a homebred, and earned his owner nearly £280,000.