Four days at Cheltenham, 16 to 19 March 2027, opening on Champion Day and closing with the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup on the Friday.
The Festival began in 1860 as the National Hunt Chase, run at Market Harborough, and settled at Cheltenham after a new course was laid out at Prestbury Park in 1902. The Gold Cup was added in 1924, at first as a supporting race for the County Hurdle, and grew into the championship of jump racing. Four days under the Cotswold escarpment now decide every major title in the sport, and the Irish come in numbers large enough to make the result a national question in two countries.
The noise is the thing people describe first. The Cheltenham roar goes up as the starter raises the tape for the opening race and is loud enough to be felt through the stands, the sound of a year of anticipation released at once. It happens because almost everyone in the enclosures has a view about what is going to win, and most of them have backed it.
The 2027 Festival runs from Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March. Each day carries its own championship: the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday, the Queen Mother Champion Chase on Wednesday, the Stayers’ Hurdle and the Ryanair Chase on St Patrick’s Thursday, and the Gold Cup on Friday. Twenty-eight races are run across the four days, for prize money second only to the Grand National, and the racecourse’s own season ticket admits its holder to every fixture of the year except these.