Cheltenham Betting Wednesday: How to Approach the Champion Chase, the Bumper and Day Two's Tricky Races

Updated 19 Oct 2026 · By the IrishBetGuide Editorial Team

Wednesday at Cheltenham has a different feel to the opener. The nerves of Tuesday are gone, half the country has an opinion on how the Festival is "going", and the Queen Mother Champion Chase is the race everyone circles. It's also a card with some of the strangest betting puzzles of the week: an often short-priced feature, a cross-country race that's almost its own sport, and a flat race for jumpers to finish the day. Here's how to think about each one, with worked numbers and no nonsense.

18+ only. This is an explainer, not a tip sheet, and every price below is an illustration. Cloudbet, which we link to, is licensed in Curaçao and is not licensed by the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI).

Day two at a glance

Wednesday is the second of the Festival's four days and, like Tuesday, it's run on the Old Course, apart from the cross-country race, which has its own track in the middle of the course. It's often marketed as Style Wednesday, and the feature is the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the two-mile championship for chasers.

The organisers move races between days from time to time and sponsors rename them, so treat this as a guide and check the official racecard before betting. In recent years, the day has usually looked something like this:

The Champion Chase: betting a short-priced feature

The Champion Chase is two miles of fast, accurate jumping, and it regularly throws up an odds-on or near-odds-on favourite. When one horse is clearly the best in the division, the market reflects it, and that creates the classic Wednesday dilemma: back the obvious one at a short price, look for an outsider, or leave it alone.

What an odds-on price actually asks of you

The question is always the same: is the horse more likely to win than the price says? Here's how a few short prices translate:

At 1.50, you need the horse to win two times in three just to break even. A two-mile chase at Cheltenham is not a gentle environment: a single bad jump, a fall, being carried out by a loose horse, or ground that's softer than ideal can all undo a hot favourite. So the honest test is: would you really rate this horse better than a 67% chance after all of that? If the answer is "probably about that", the bet has no edge, even if the horse wins.

"Without the favourite" markets

When one horse dominates, many bookmakers offer a "betting without" market, which settles as if the favourite wasn't in the race. If the favourite wins, the horse that finishes second is treated as the winner of the "without" market.

A worked illustration. Say the main market has the favourite at 1.50 and your fancy, horse B, at 6.00. In the "without the favourite" market, horse B might be around 2.50. You put €10 on it.

• The favourite wins and B finishes second: you win, with a return of €25 (profit €15).
• B wins outright: you win the same €25.
• B finishes third behind the favourite and another horse: you lose €10.

It's a cleaner way to express "I think B is the best of the rest" than an each-way bet in a small field, where place terms can be poor.

Forecasts: predicting the first two

A straight forecast picks the first and second in the right order. A reverse forecast covers both orders and costs two stakes. In a small field with a dominant favourite, some punters use the favourite to win with two or three others for second. It's essentially a bet on the "without the favourite" result with the favourite's win attached, and the payout is calculated by a formula that differs between bookmakers, so check how your book settles it.

The novice races: stamina questions on day two

Wednesday's novice races are both about stepping up in trip. The novice hurdle at around two miles five furlongs often attracts horses who've been winning over shorter distances, and the novice chase at three miles tests stamina and jumping together.

Two things worth looking at:

• Breeding and running style. A horse that has been finishing its races strongly over shorter trips is more likely to appreciate a longer one than a horse that tends to race keenly and fade.
• Jumping over fences. In the three-mile novice chase, a horse that's been sketchy at its fences in smaller races is a real risk at Cheltenham, where the pace is relentless and fields are bigger.

Our page on how horse racing betting works covers the basics of reading form if you're newer to it.

The Coral Cup: a big-field handicap hurdle

The Coral Cup is a handicap hurdle that usually draws a big field, which means each-way terms are often generous (handicaps with 16 or more runners have traditionally paid four places at a quarter of the odds, though books set their own rules). It's a race where finding the winner is hard and where small stakes on several horses can make more sense than one big bet.

An example of a "Dutching" approach, where you split a stake across a few horses so you get roughly the same return whichever of them wins:

The combined implied chance of those three horses is about 22.7%, so a little more than one time in five you'd collect around €38 profit, and the rest of the time you'd lose €11.20. Whether that's good depends entirely on whether you rate them higher than 22.7% combined. Dutching spreads risk, but it doesn't create value by itself. Our bet calculator can help work the stakes out.

The Cross Country Chase: a race for specialists

The cross-country race is unlike anything else at the Festival. It's run on a separate course with banks, ditches, hedges and twists, over a marathon distance. Horses need stamina, agility and, most of all, experience of this kind of course.

That makes form reading unusual:

• Course form is king. Horses that have run well over the cross-country course before, including at the November and December meetings that use it, carry real weight.
• Ratings over regular fences matter less. A horse rated lower over normal fences can beat better-rated rivals if it handles the banks.
• Irish trainers have a strong tradition in cross-country racing, partly because of Punchestown's own cross-country course.
• Jockey experience counts. Riders who know where to save ground and how to meet the banks are worth noting.

It's also a race many casual punters skip, which can mean the market is less efficient than for the big Grade 1s.

The two-mile handicap chase

A fast-run two-mile handicap chase over the Old Course is one of the most chaotic betting heats of the week. The pace is furious, there's very little time to recover from a mistake, and plenty of runners have been campaigned all season with this race in mind.

Look for horses with proven form at a strong pace, sound jumping, and a rating that looks fair compared with their best runs. Ground matters too; a quick two miles on good ground suits a very different type of horse to a slog in the soft. Our Cheltenham going guide goes deeper on that.

The Champion Bumper: betting on horses with almost no form

The day often ends with the Champion Bumper, a flat race (no hurdles or fences) for young National Hunt horses who haven't yet raced over obstacles. It's a showcase for future stars, and Irish stables, Willie Mullins's in particular, have a famously strong record in it.

The betting challenge is that most runners have very little form: maybe one or two bumper runs, or a point-to-point. That means:

• Market moves carry more weight than usual, because connections often know more than the public about how a young horse has been working at home.
• Trainer patterns matter. Some yards bring their best bumper horses here every year.
• Big fields and inexperience mean plenty of horses won't handle the hustle, so expect surprises.

Many punters treat the Bumper as the time to stop for the day. If you've already used your Wednesday budget, that's a perfectly good plan.

A day-two plan that isn't just "do Tuesday again"

By Wednesday, most punters are either chasing Tuesday's losses or feeling flush from a winner and betting bigger. Both are traps. A few rules that help:

1. Reset, don't roll over. Wednesday has its own budget, set before the Festival began, and Tuesday's result doesn't change it.
2. Bet fewer races. You don't need a bet in all seven. Pick two or three where you have a genuine opinion.
3. Match the bet type to the race. Win or "without the favourite" in small fields; each-way or small Dutched stakes in the big handicaps; small stakes or nothing in the Bumper.
4. Avoid the big multiple. A Champion Chase favourite doubled with a handicap winner isn't "safe money plus a bit of fun". If the favourite is 1.50 and the handicapper 12.00, the double wins about 5.6% of the time on those prices.
5. Write it down. Note your bets, stakes and reasons. You'll learn more from Wednesday's notes than from any tipster.

Where Cloudbet fits in

Cloudbet lists major horse racing, including the Festival, and takes crypto deposits and withdrawals. It can be a handy extra price to compare, especially for feature races like the Champion Chase. Keep the trade-offs in mind:

• It's licensed in Curaçao and not by the GRAI, so you won't have Irish regulatory protection.
• Crypto prices move, so your balance's euro value can change.
• Special markets like "without the favourite" and each-way terms vary by book and race, so check before you bet.

Whoever you bet with, comparing prices across a few books is one of the few edges every punter can get.

Wednesday morning checklist

• Confirm the race order, off times and declared runners on the official racecard.
• Check the going and any overnight rain; the cross-country and staying races are most affected.
• Look for "without the favourite" and extra-place markets on the races you like.
• Set your day-two budget and stick to it.
• Decide in advance whether you'll bet the Bumper at all.

For the week as a whole, our Cheltenham betting guide and the day-one companion piece, Cheltenham betting Tuesday, fill in the rest.

Bet for the craic, not the rent

Cheltenham should be fun. If you notice you're betting more than planned, chasing losses or hiding how much you've spent, take a break. The Gambling Care helpline is free and open 24/7 on 1800 936 725 (Northern Ireland: 08000 886 725). Our responsible gambling page has more help, and our page on whether online betting is legal in Ireland covers the legal side.