Cheltenham Festival 2022: Everything You Need To Know

You can watch the Cheltenham Festival live on Racing TV - the only channel where you can watch all 7 races every day - coverage starts at 10am each morning!

To get started, simply sign up for a Racing TV account and you will be able to watch all of the action as it happens.

The Gold Cup takes place at 3:30pm on the Friday of the Festival and is broadcast live on Racing TV (on television, online, and via the app).

The Cheltenham Festival will start on Tuesday, 15 Mar 2022 and will run until Friday, 18 Mar 2022.

The first Cheltenham Festival was held in 1860, originally titled the Grand National Hunt Meeting.

The Cheltenham Festival lasts 4 days between Tuesday and Friday in March, with the final day hosting the famous Gold Cup.

Over the course of the four days, there are 28 races that take place in total with every race shown live on Racing TV.

Gates open at 10:30am every day of the festival with the first race starting at 1:30pm and the final one at 5:30pm.

Cheltenham Racecourse, where the Cheltenham Festival is held, is located on Evesham Rd, just a five minute drive from the Cheltenham town centre. The venue is easily accessible by car and a public bus is able to shuttle visitors to and from the Cheltenham Spa Railway Station throughout the day.

The Cheltenham Festival attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. In fact, it usually draws in crowds of over a quarter of a million people. To date, the record attendance was 266,557 guests in 2019.

Cheltenham Festival features several big Grade 1 races over the course of the week. The Gold Cup, which takes place on the Friday and dates back all the way to the 19th century, The Stayers' Hurdle, taking place on the Thursday, The Queen Mother Champion Chase, which is always the featured race on the second day of the festival, and the most prestigious hurdling event in the calendar, the Champion Hurdle, taking place on day one.

The Gold Cup is the most famous and prestigious race held during the Cheltenham Festival.

This Grade 1 National Hunt race comprises 22 fences spread over a distance of about 3 miles 2½ furlongs, and in 2021 the total prize pot approached half a million pounds (£468,750).

The Cheltenham Gold Cup always takes place on the Friday of the Festival. In 2022, it will be held on Friday the 18th of March.

The Gold Cup is a non-handicap race; in fact, it is the most valuable non-handicap steeplechase in the UK.

Cheltenham Festival offers various packages according to your needs. Tickets are valid for one of the four festival days and are priced as follows:

Best Mate Enclosure £25.00 to £33.00 Tattersalls Enclosure £40.00 to £65.00 Guinness Grandstand £85.00 to £115.00 Club Enclosure £75.00 to £100.00 Cheltenham Restaurant Packages £250.00 to £770.00

The Cheltenham Festival, unlike Ascot, is not considered a social event and there is no official dress code. Guests tend to dress to impress and will arrive in smart attire, but this is not a requirement. It is strongly recommended that guests be mindful of the weather above all else when dressing for the festival, as conditions can often be both cold and wet.

Full refunds are offered on day tickets where the first meeting of the day is yet to take place. Following this, a 50% refund is offered should the event be cancelled after the third race of the day or a feature race. Cash refunds are not offered on the day, but guests can expect to receive refunds online.

Since 2018, all of the races at the Festival are declared 48 hours in advance.

Cheltenham is one of the biggest and most eagerly anticipated meetings in the British horse racing calendar - and as such tickets are usually in high demand, with the Gold Cup day often selling out far in advance of the beginning of the event.

The Cheltenham Festival is a world-famous jumps meeting. However, the meeting does include one flat race - the Weatherbys Champion Bumper on Ladies Day.