Cheltenham Festival Handicap Tips 2027: Marks, Weights and What Wins

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By The Guv'nor · Last updated October 2026

Cheltenham Festival handicap tips should start with the marks. I went through every running of the nine big Festival handicaps from 2017 to 2026: 90 races and 1,999 runners. Only 19 favourites won, more than half the winners were 10/1 or bigger, and British-trained horses racing off a mark no higher than their last winning mark had the best strike rate of any British group.

The Festival handicaps and how they're framed

The 2027 Festival runs from Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March, with 28 races over four days according to The Jockey Club. The 2027 race order wasn't out on 5 October 2026, so the days below are from 2026.

• Premier Handicaps: seven of the nine have carried that label since 2023. The Kim Muir and Martin Pipe haven't, and in all ten years their top-rated runner was 145 or lower.
• The Pertemps is a final: a horse has to finish in the first four of a qualifier to get in.
• Three newer handicaps: since 2025 the National Hunt Chase, the Jack Richards novices' chase and the Cross Country have also been handicaps. With only two runnings in that form they're left out of my numbers.

Those are the Cheltenham Festival handicaps I've studied. The basics of marks and weights are in horse racing handicaps explained, the whole meeting is in my Cheltenham Festival tips preview and the trends are in Cheltenham Festival trends. The rest of the season is on my big races calendar.

What past winners had in common: mark vs last winning mark

For Cheltenham handicap tips, this is the question I care about: was the winner racing off a mark it had already won off? For each winner I set its official rating (OR) at the Festival against the rating it carried into its last win in the same discipline (hurdles or fences). A minus means it was running off a lower mark than when it last won.

Ultima Handicap Chase

Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle

Festival Plate Handicap Chase

Coral Cup (BetMGM Cup in 2026)

Grand Annual Handicap Chase

Pertemps Network Final

Kim Muir Handicap Chase

County Handicap Hurdle

Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle

With hindsight: all ten Ultima winners were British-trained and level to 8lb above their last winning chase mark. Four Grand Annual winners ran off a lower or equal mark, two of them at 66/1, and so did three 25/1 Pertemps winners.

The whole field, not just the winners

Winners alone don't show how many in each group lost, so I checked all 1,999 runners.

Before anyone gets excited about that +130.5: two 66/1 Grand Annual winners (Croco Bay in 2019, Martator in 2026) are nearly all of it. Without them the group is at -1.5 points. Twelve winners is a small, hindsight sample: a lean, not a system. The strike rates barely move until you split by where the horse is trained:

British-trained horses run the way you'd expect: the lower the mark against the last win, the better the strike rate, and big risers and unexposed types won far less often. Irish-trained horses run the other way round. (Trainer base is my call from where each yard's runners raced that season, and the two French-trained runners sit in the British column: a close guide, not gospel.)

When the weights come out: what I look for

No date had been announced for the 2027 Festival handicap weights as of 5 October 2026. I'll add it when it's confirmed and refresh this page then and again at declarations.

The BHA's guide to handicapping covers the mechanics: each rating point is a pound in weight, ratings are updated every Tuesday, and a horse usually needs three runs to get a mark. So a horse 7lb higher than when it last won carries 7lb more against the same rivals.

When the Festival handicap weights land, I set every horse's mark against the marks it has won off, or come close off, before (more on that in well handicapped horses). That's the heart of the system behind my outsiders: it picks out horses that have won or come close at a weight or mark higher than they're running off today. With hindsight, Martator (139 at the Festival, last won off 140) and Global Citizen (136, last won off 156) fit that profile. It isn't the only route in, mind: plenty of winners, especially Irish ones, had no comparable winning mark at all.

Irish-trained handicappers and the 'plot' myth

Every March you hear the Irish yards have "plotted" one up, keeping a mark low all winter for Cheltenham. The numbers say otherwise.

• They do win more than their share: 776 of the 1,999 runners (38.8%) but 48 of the 90 races, a 6.2% strike rate against 3.4% for British-trained runners.
• But not off dropped marks: only one of the 48, Arctic Fire in the 2017 County Hurdle, ran off a mark at or below its last winning mark. Fifteen were 8lb or more above it.
• Most were unexposed: 27 of the 48 had either no mark shown for their last win or no win at all in that discipline. In the Fred Winter, seven of the nine Irish-trained winners had no comparable winning mark.

So the Irish winners were mostly horses the handicapper hadn't caught up with, not old hands with protected marks. And a mark earned in Ireland is an Irish rating, which often isn't the number a horse gets at Cheltenham: of 281 runners from 2023 to 2026 whose previous run was in Ireland, only 28 ran off that same rating, and the median was 4lb higher. So some of those "rises" may be the marks being set differently, not improvement. If you follow the form over there, my Irish racing tips hub is the place to start.

Each-way terms and extra places in 20-plus runner fields

89 of my 90 races had 16 or more runners and 79 had 20 or more. Under standard terms, such as Coral's horse racing rules, a handicap with 16 or more runners pays a quarter of the odds for the first four, and ante-post place terms stand as taken. Some firms add extra places (one advertised six instead of four on the 2026 Grand Annual), so check the terms on the day.

The places go to big prices: of the 270 horses that finished second, third or fourth, 167 (61.9%) started at 10/1 or bigger and 78 at 20/1 or bigger. Favourites won 19 of the 90 races (21.1%), against 182 of 706 (25.8%) for Betfair SP favourites in my study of 16-plus-runner UK and Irish races from October 2025 to September 2026 (how often do favourites win). On 90 races that 4.7-point gap is well within chance, and my Festival figure uses bookies' SP, so I wouldn't read much into it.

That's why I like outsiders here: even when they only place, we can make more profit than an odds-on shot winning. The break-even maths is on each-way betting explained, and if you'd rather tie four runners together, see my lucky 15 tips.

Cheltenham Festival handicap tips: how I narrow a 24-runner field down

Look, I'm essentially a statistics/maths geek. I used to be a Quantitative Researcher at a Tier 1 investment bank, and a 24-runner Festival handicap is just a bigger version of the puzzle behind every day's newsletter. The order I work in:

1. The marks first. My system picks out the horses that have won or come close off a higher weight or mark than today.
2. Then the price. I'm after profit month to month, not a win rate. Anyone can talk about high win rates when they tip odds-on horses all day. In fields this size I'm looking at outsiders and each-way value.
3. Then anything I hear. I own racehorses, and when I've got stable information or there's smart money in a market, members get it.
4. Then I cut. If I'm unsure about one, it doesn't go in. The newsletter is a short list for your betting of the day.
5. Same stakes as any other week. I stake in points (1pt can be £5 on a £100 bank, more on what 1pt means in betting). Don't go all in on a feeling because it's Cheltenham, and don't chase on Friday.

I bet on every horse I tip, Festival week included, and plenty of them will get beaten. Understanding that losers are a thing is the key to being a winner longer term. Trust the process.

The handicappers my system flags go out to Winners Club members on the morning they run.

Price

Price of the service is a fixed £9.99 monthly and that will never change and you can cancel anytime if it's not for you. To break that down for you that's about 32p a day for a whole month or a going to have a McDonalds with a mate. Crazy right?

I've priced it cheap because I want it accessible to absolutely everyone and build a community of winners - If I am honest the £9.99 is just there as a filter if you like so that only serious people sign up. If the paid version isn't for you just yet, then feel free to sign up to the free service.

My promise.

Look, I can't guarantee every tip every day is going to win (anyone that can is a fraudster). But I can promise you that every horse I will tip I am betting on myself and through my data analysis techniques it should be in with a very strong chance of bolting up and winning and over a long enough period you will be profitable.

Here's what some of our paid members have been saying:

Give it a go, what have you got to lose? It's only a tenner a month. Feel free to try out the free version first!

- The Guv'nor

Festival handicap FAQs

How many handicaps are there at the Cheltenham Festival?

Twelve of the 28 in 2026: the nine in the tables above, plus the National Hunt Chase, the Jack Richards novices' chase and the Cross Country, which became handicaps in 2025.

When are the Cheltenham Festival handicap weights published?

The 2027 date hadn't been announced as of 5 October 2026. I'll add it here once it's confirmed.

What is the Festival Plate?

A handicap chase over about two and a half miles (2m 4f 44y in 2026, when it ran on the Tuesday). If you're after Festival Plate tips, start with the market: five of the last ten winners were favourite, including Jagwar in 2025 and Madara in 2026, both at 3/1.

More in this guide

• Big races 2026/27: the calendar and previews
• Cheltenham Festival tips 2027
• Cheltenham Festival trends
• Cheltenham Gold Cup preview
• Well handicapped horses: how I spot them
• Grand National tips 2027