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By The Guv'nor · Last updated October 2026
Cheltenham Gold Cup tips start with the facts. The 2027 race is on Friday 19 March 2027, 4.00pm pencilled in, over about 3 miles 2½ furlongs. In the last 20 runnings 10 favourites won, 15 of the 20 winners were aged seven or eight, and nine of the last ten were trained in Ireland.
This is my Cheltenham Gold Cup preview: the trials, the trends with sample sizes and the each-way maths. What you won't find is my bet. That goes to Winners Club members on the day.
Cheltenham Gold Cup tips 2027: where the form stands in October
Start with 2026. Gaelic Warrior won for Willie Mullins and Paul Townend as the 11/4 joint-favourite, eight lengths clear of the other joint-favourite, Jango Baie, with the 2025 winner Inothewayurthinkin (11/1) third. It was a fifth Gold Cup for Mullins, equalling the record for a trainer, and a record fifth for Townend.
He then won the Punchestown Gold Cup at 5/6, 26 lengths clear of Fact To File, who had won the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown in February 2026. Born in April 2018, Gaelic Warrior will be a nine-year-old next March.
Galopin Des Champs, winner in 2023 and 2024, missed the 2026 race after a setback. His retirement was announced on 27 August 2026, and sadly he died after an injury in his paddock five days later.
Last season's other big staying chases went to Grey Dawning (Betfair Chase, November 2025), The Jukebox Man (King George VI Chase, Boxing Day 2025) and Affordale Fury (Savills Chase, December 2025). None of them won the Gold Cup, which is pretty typical.
The trials that matter on the road to Cheltenham
Gold Cup horses don't run often in the winter, so each prep run moves the market. Here are the main stops, with the racecourses' 2026/27 dates. The rest of the winter's features are on my big races calendar.
Betfair Chase, Haydock: Saturday 21 November 2026
Haydock bills it as the first Grade 1 chase of the season, run over about 3 miles 1½ furlongs. Only two Betfair Chase winners in the last 20 seasons went on to win the Gold Cup that March: Kauto Star (2006/07) and A Plus Tard (2021/22).
King George VI Chase, Kempton: Saturday 26 December 2026
The Boxing Day Grade 1 at Kempton's Christmas Festival, three miles round a flat, right-handed track: a very different test from the Cheltenham hill. Three times in the 20 seasons the King George winner went on to take the Gold Cup: Kauto Star twice, and Long Run, whose "2010" King George was run in January 2011 after snow. More in my King George Chase preview.
Savills Chase, Leopardstown: Monday 28 December 2026
Day three of the Leopardstown Christmas Festival. Three winners of this race went on to Gold Cup glory that season: Denman, Synchronised and Galopin Des Champs (in 2023/24).
Irish Gold Cup, Leopardstown: Saturday 30 January 2027
The Saturday feature at the Dublin Racing Festival, over three miles. Sizing John (2017) and Galopin Des Champs (2023 and 2024) won both Gold Cups in the same season, so three of the last 20.
The British trials: Festival Trials Day and Newbury's Super Saturday
Cheltenham's Festival Trials Day is on Saturday 30 January 2027, the same day as the Irish Gold Cup. The Cotswold Chase, traditionally the big chase on that card, hasn't produced a same-season Gold Cup winner in the 20 seasons I checked (0 from 20). Newbury's Super Saturday is on 13 February 2027. The Denman Chase, which Newbury has traditionally run in February, did produce four: Kauto Star and Denman (when it was still called the Aon Chase), Coneygree and Native River.
Trial tracker: 2026/27 results against 20 years of history
I'll update this through the winter. The history column counts Gold Cup winners from 2007 to 2026 who had won that trial earlier in the same season.
| Trial | 2026/27 date | Trial winner then won the Gold Cup | 2026/27 winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Betfair Chase (Haydock) | Sat 21 Nov 2026 | 2 of 20 | Not run yet |
| King George VI Chase (Kempton) | Sat 26 Dec 2026 | 3 of 20 | Not run yet |
| Savills Chase (Leopardstown) | Mon 28 Dec 2026 | 3 of 20 | Not run yet |
| Irish Gold Cup (Leopardstown) | Sat 30 Jan 2027 | 3 of 20 | Not run yet |
| Cotswold Chase (Cheltenham) | Trials Day, Sat 30 Jan 2027 | 0 of 20 | Not run yet |
| Denman Chase (Newbury) | Super Saturday, Sat 13 Feb 2027 | 4 of 20 | Not run yet |
Now the bit that surprised me. In 9 of those 20 seasons, the Gold Cup winner hadn't won any of these six races, the 2025 and 2026 winners included. Al Boum Photo's only run before his 2019 and 2020 wins was at Tramore on New Year's Day. Minella Indo was fourth of five in the 2021 Irish Gold Cup before winning at 9/1.
So a trial is information, not a verdict. Losing one can leave a proper stayer at a bigger price than he should be.
Cheltenham Gold Cup trends that still hold (with sample sizes)
The last 20 Gold Cups, as I compiled them. Everything in this section comes from this table.
| Year | Winner (age) | SP | Trainer | 2nd / 3rd SP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Gaelic Warrior (8) | 11/4 JF | Willie Mullins | 11/4 / 11/1 |
| 2025 | Inothewayurthinkin (7) | 15/2 | Gavin Cromwell | 8/13 / 40/1 |
| 2024 | Galopin Des Champs (8) | 10/11 F | Willie Mullins | 13/2 / 14/1 |
| 2023 | Galopin Des Champs (7) | 7/5 F | Willie Mullins | 6/1 / 22/1 |
| 2022 | A Plus Tard (8) | 3/1 F | Henry de Bromhead | 6/1 / 11/1 |
| 2021 | Minella Indo (8) | 9/1 | Henry de Bromhead | 100/30 / 9/4 |
| 2020 | Al Boum Photo (8) | 100/30 F | Willie Mullins | 5/1 / 10/1 |
| 2019 | Al Boum Photo (7) | 12/1 | Willie Mullins | 22/1 / 18/1 |
| 2018 | Native River (8) | 5/1 | Colin Tizzard | 4/1 / 33/1 |
| 2017 | Sizing John (7) | 7/1 | Jessica Harrington | 18/1 / 7/2 |
| 2016 | Don Cossack (9) | 9/4 F | Gordon Elliott | 9/2 / 9/2 |
| 2015 | Coneygree (8) | 7/1 | Mark Bradstock | 10/1 / 8/1 |
| 2014 | Lord Windermere (8) | 20/1 | Jim Culloty | 16/1 / 14/1 |
| 2013 | Bobs Worth (8) | 11/4 F | Nicky Henderson | 4/1 / 7/2 |
| 2012 | Synchronised (9) | 8/1 | Jonjo O'Neill | 50/1 / 7/4 |
| 2011 | Long Run (6) | 7/2 F | Nicky Henderson | 8/1 / 5/1 |
| 2010 | Imperial Commander (9) | 7/1 | Nigel Twiston-Davies | 4/1 / 50/1 |
| 2009 | Kauto Star (9) | 7/4 F | Paul Nicholls | 7/1 / 8/1 |
| 2008 | Denman (8) | 9/4 | Paul Nicholls | 10/11 / 25/1 |
| 2007 | Kauto Star (7) | 5/4 F | Paul Nicholls | 9/2 / 40/1 |
One honest caveat: the results services don't all agree on a few of these prices. For 2018 one has Native River at 4/1 rather than 5/1, and for 2022 it has Minella Indo at 7/1 and Protektorat at 10/1. None of the counts below change either way.
Favourites: 10 winners from 20 runnings
Ten favourites won between 2007 and 2026, including Gaelic Warrior as joint-favourite. If you'd put 1pt on the favourite every year at SP (half a point each on the 2026 joint-favourites), you'd be +11.0 points from 20 bets. Over the last ten runnings it's 5 winners and +4.5 points.
Look, that's a decent record, but 20 races is a tiny sample and a couple of results going the other way would change it a lot. Across all racing, favourites win far less often, and my page on how often favourites win has the bigger numbers.
Age: seven and eight dominate
Fifteen of the 20 winners were seven or eight (five aged seven, ten aged eight). Four were nine, the last of them Don Cossack in 2016, and one was six (Long Run, 2011). No horse aged ten or older won in the period. Every winner since 2017 has been seven or eight (10 of 10).
Ireland, and one yard in particular
Eleven of the 20 winners were trained in Ireland, and it's nine of the last ten, with Native River in 2018 the exception. Willie Mullins trained five of the last eight (2019, 2020, 2023, 2024 and 2026).
Winning prices
Eleven of the 20 winners started shorter than 4/1. Seven were between 4/1 and 9/1, and two went off at 10/1 or bigger: Lord Windermere at 20/1 in 2014 and Al Boum Photo at 12/1 in 2019.
A word on method. Only the favourites get a level-stakes test, because that needs just the winners' prices. Age and trial angles need every runner's SP, so they're strike rates only: filters, not a system. For the rest of the week, my Cheltenham Festival trends page runs the same tests race by race.
Stamina, the hill and the going
At about 3 miles 2½ furlongs (roughly 5,300 metres), finishing up the Cheltenham hill, the Gold Cup is longer than every trial in the tracker. The Betfair Chase and the Cotswold Chase are about a furlong shorter. The King George, the Savills Chase and the Irish Gold Cup are all about three miles, and the Denman Chase is under three. So the Gold Cup asks a question no trial has asked all winter.
The ground changes the test a lot. Don Cossack won on good ground in 2016 in about 6 minutes 35 seconds. Native River won on soft, heavy in places, in 2018 in just over 7 minutes 2 seconds, nearly half a minute slower over the same trip. Nobody knows in October what the ground will be in March, so any long-range bet is partly a bet on the weather. If you're unsure how the official going descriptions work, my going guide covers it, and the Cheltenham course guide has the layout.
Gold Cup each-way tips: place terms in a small field
Gold Cup fields are small. There haven't been fewer than nine runners in the last 20 runnings, but it was nine as recently as 2025 and ten in 2026. It isn't a handicap, so under the Tattersalls Committee rules the standard terms for eight or more runners apply: 1/5 the odds, three places. Some bookies offer extra places on the day, so shop around.
Here's what that means in points. Say 1pt is £5 on a £100 bank and you go 1pt each-way at 10/1, so £10 in total:
- The horse wins: the win half returns £55 and the place half (10/1 divided by 5, so 2/1) returns £15. That's £70 back, £60 profit.
- It finishes second or third: only the place half pays, £15 back, so £5 profit.
- It finishes fourth or worse: you lose the £10.
In a ten-runner field, three places gives the average runner a 30% place chance before you know anything about the horses. My each-way betting guide has the break-even table showing where it starts to pay.
Bigger prices have been placing, too. In 15 of the 20 runnings at least one horse at 10/1 or bigger finished in the first three, and those horses filled 19 of the 60 places. In 9 of the 20 there was a 20/1-plus shot in the frame, from Turpin Green at 40/1 in 2007 to Gentlemansgame at 40/1 in 2025.
The catch: without every runner's price I can't say whether backing the outsiders each-way made money, only that the places aren't reserved for the market leaders.
One more thing for ante-post punters. Your place terms are fixed when you strike the bet, but if your horse doesn't make the line-up the stake is usually lost unless it was non-runner no bet. My guide to ante-post betting goes through that properly. If you like rolling a few Friday bets into a multiple, my lucky 15 tips page is worth a look.
What I look for in a Gold Cup winner
If I am honest, I come at the Gold Cup the same way I come at any other race. I used to be a Quantitative Researcher at a Tier 1 investment bank, essentially a statistics/maths geek, so it's price against probability, not reputation, and not who won the race last year. And I bet on every horse I tip, Gold Cup included.
The trends and trials above are where I start, not where I finish. They tell me which horses fit the profile; the price tells me whether any of them is worth backing. A big name priced shorter than its real chance doesn't get my money, however good it looks in the paddock. I'm after profit month to month, not a high win rate. Anyone can talk about high win rates when they tip odds-on horses all day.
That's why I like an outsider at a fair each-way price. At a big enough price, even when they place we make more profit than an odds-on shot winning. Crazy right? Where I've got stable information or some smart money moving in the market, that goes into the decision too.
The staking stays boring. It's points, with 1pt being something like £5 on a £100 bank, and I don't go all in on a feeling, Gold Cup or not. If I'm not sure about a horse, I skip it. Understanding that losers are a thing is the key to being a winner longer term, so you don't chase them on the Friday of the biggest week of the year.
My actual Gold Cup selection goes out to Winners Club members on the Friday morning.
Price
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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.
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- The Guv'nor
Cheltenham Gold Cup FAQs
When is the Cheltenham Gold Cup 2027?
Friday 19 March 2027, the fourth and final day of the Cheltenham Festival, which runs from Tuesday 16 March. The course has the race down for 4.00pm, subject to change. Full dates are on Cheltenham's Festival page.
Who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2026?
Gaelic Warrior (Willie Mullins, Paul Townend), the 11/4 joint-favourite, by eight lengths from Jango Baie.
How many places are paid each-way in the Gold Cup?
Three places at 1/5 the odds, the standard terms for a non-handicap with eight or more runners. Some bookmakers offer extra places as a promotion.
More in this guide
- Cheltenham Festival tips: the race-by-race preview
- Cheltenham Festival trends that make money
- Champion Hurdle preview, trials and trends
- King George VI Chase preview
- Big races calendar for 2026/27
- Irish racing tips and the Irish festival guides
I run Bolts Up Daily. I was a Quantitative Researcher at a Tier 1 Investment Bank (essentially a statistics and maths geek), and I now use those skills to analyse UK and Irish racing, profitably enough that most of your favourite bookies won't take a bet from me. Every horse I tip, I'm betting on myself, and every bet comes with a stake in points. I own racehorses too. Look, I can't guarantee every tip is going to win (anyone that can is a fraudster), but I care about profit, not strike rate.
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