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Champion Hurdle

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THEKING Copy

Day

Tuesday

Time

16:00

Grade

Grade 1

Distance

2m

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Champion Hurdle: How Can I Bet?

Race Details:

Date: 10 March 2026
Grade: Grade 1
Open To: Four-years-old and up
Track: Turf
Length: 3,298 Metres
Location: United Kingdom


Champion Hurdle 2026: Cheltenham Festival Betting Preview

Chaos, Falls and a Wide-Open Crown: The Most Unpredictable Champion Hurdle in Years

Tuesday, 10 March 2026 | 4:00 PM | Cheltenham Racecourse, Prestbury Park, Gloucestershire

Grade 1 | 2 Miles ½ Furlong (2m 87y) | Old Course | 8 Hurdles | 4yo+ | £450,000


The Champion Hurdle is the crown jewel of Day One at the Cheltenham Festival, the ultimate test of speed and precision over hurdles, and the final leg of the Triple Crown of Hurdling. First run in 1927, it has been won by legends from Istabraq to Hurricane Fly to Constitution Hill. The 2026 renewal, however, arrives in a state of beautiful disarray. Sir Gino, the horse who looked a world-beater when storming home in the Christmas Hurdle, suffered a fractured pelvis on Trials Day and is out for the season. State Man, the 2024 champion, is also sidelined with a season-ending injury. Constitution Hill, the most talented hurdler of his generation, has fallen in three of his last four starts and is currently trying to get into a Flat race at Southwell just to rebuild his confidence. And Lossiemouth, the mare with a perfect three-from-three Festival record, will almost certainly swerve the Champion Hurdle for the safer option of the Mares' Hurdle.


What remains is a race of contradictions. There is no outstanding favourite. There is no obvious form horse. The market leader, The New Lion, has never raced at Championship level and has questions to answer about his speed. The Irish Champion Hurdle winner, Brighterdaysahead, has never won at Cheltenham. The defending champion, Golden Ace, won last year's race at 26.00 after the two best horses in the field fell. And the great enigma, Constitution Hill, might not even make it to the start. Somewhere in this mess lies a Champion Hurdle winner. Working out who it is has never been harder.


The Market Leaders


Time Stamp: Saturday, February 15, 2026, 5:00 PM ET

Odds Subject to Change
Source: Bet365

Brighterdaysahead 3.50 | The New Lion 3.75 | Constitution Hill 5.00 | Lossiemouth 7.00 | Golden Ace 9.00 | Alexei 17.00 | Poniros 17.00 | Anzadam 26.00


The New Lion: Britain's Best Hope

The New Lion sits at or near the top of every ante-post market and carries the considerable weight of JP McManus ownership, Dan Skelton training and Harry Skelton in the saddle. The six-year-old won the Turners Novices' Hurdle over two miles and five furlongs at last year's Festival, beating Final Demand in a race that worked out well, and was rated the best novice hurdler in Britain and Ireland at the end of the season. The BHA handicapper noted at the time that he would need to improve 8-10lb to be competitive in a Champion Hurdle. So has he?

The honest answer is: we do not know. The New Lion's two starts this season have both been compromised. In the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle in November, he was travelling powerfully when he fell two out, the same race that saw Constitution Hill crash out at the second flight. Golden Ace picked up the pieces and won. On Trials Day at Cheltenham in January, The New Lion lined up in the Unibet Hurdle against Sir Gino in what was supposed to be the defining trial. Then Sir Gino fractured his pelvis after jumping three out, and the race became a four-runner procession on the New Course. The New Lion hacked around, sprinted from the last and beat Nemean Lion by a length and a half. It told us almost nothing about his Champion Hurdle credentials.

Ruby Walsh, speaking on the Paddy Power podcast, said he believes The New Lion is the one to beat. He acknowledged the International was not run to suit, describing it as "like a schooling session" where Skelton "show-jumped him" over the last two flights. Walsh's view is that The New Lion showed enough speed from the last to the line and that the true Champion Hurdle pace will bring out more from him. Dan Skelton himself said the key takeaway was a "clear round" after the Newcastle fall, and that the horse was "a lot more respectful" in his jumping.

The concerns are real though. The New Lion has never been asked to race at genuine Championship speed over two miles on the Old Course. His novice win came over a longer trip. The slowly-run International proved he could quicken, but as Walsh himself noted, "you can't do that in a Champion Hurdle." He is five from six over hurdles, unbeaten at Cheltenham, and has enormous potential, but he is being asked to do something he has never done before at the highest level, and 3.75 is a short price for a horse with unanswered questions.


Brighterdaysahead: The Irish Champion With a Cheltenham Problem

Gordon Elliott's seven-year-old mare turned the Champion Hurdle picture on its head when she beat Lossiemouth by three and a quarter lengths in the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown on February 1st. It was a performance of genuine authority. Jack Kennedy stalked the pace set by stablemate El Fabiolo, took it up approaching the second last, and powered clear. Paul Townend, on Lossiemouth, was at the pump from a long way out and never looked like closing the gap. Elliott confirmed immediately afterwards that Brighterdaysahead would go for the Champion Hurdle, not the Mares' Hurdle.

The Irish Champion Hurdle is one of the most reliable Champion Hurdle trials in existence. It has produced seven Cheltenham winners since 2006, and five of the last six Champion Hurdle winners ran in either the Irish Champion or the Christmas Hurdle on their previous start. Brighterdaysahead ticks that box emphatically. She was entitled to improve from a narrow defeat to Lossiemouth in the December Hurdle, having had only one run under her belt at that point following an autumn setback that scuppered her planned novice chase campaign.

The problem is Cheltenham itself. Brighterdaysahead is 0-2 at the Festival. She went off 3.50 (5/2) for last year's Champion Hurdle and finished a desperately disappointing fourth, beaten a long way even before State Man's dramatic fall at the last. Elliott said afterwards that Kennedy reported she "never picked up for him at all" and that she had "whinnied crossing the line" in apparent distress, raising welfare concerns on the day. Her Cheltenham form is a blank at best, a worry at worst.

Supporters will point out that she was only having her second start of the season in that 2025 Champion Hurdle and may not have been fully wound up. This time she arrives with the Irish Champion Hurdle under her belt and a full preparation behind her. The Sporting Life's Jonny Ward noted that he "wouldn't be totally shocked to see Lossiemouth reverse that form if they met again at Cheltenham," suggesting the Dublin form might not be as solid as it looked. But at 3.50, she is the market leader, and her Irish Champion Hurdle performance was the single best trial performance from any horse left in this race.


Constitution Hill: The Great Enigma on the Flat at Southwell

Where do you even begin with Constitution Hill? The 2023 Champion Hurdle winner remains one of the most naturally gifted hurdlers of the modern era. His peak performances, the 2022 Supreme and the 2023 Champion Hurdle, were breathtaking displays of power and jumping ability that left seasoned observers reaching for superlatives. Nicky Henderson has said his homework is as good as it has ever been, and that "I've no doubt he's still as good as he was two years ago."

The issue is that he keeps falling over. Three of his last four starts over hurdles have ended at the turf. He fell in the 2025 Champion Hurdle (fifth hurdle), fell at Aintree (the Aintree Hurdle), trailed home 27 lengths behind the winner at Punchestown, and then fell again in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle in November at the second flight. The sequence is unprecedented for a horse of his calibre and has understandably prompted talk of retirement. Henderson, however, is not ready to give up.

The plan is for Constitution Hill to make his Flat debut at Southwell on Friday February 20th, in a specially created 1m4f novice race worth £40,000. Oisin Murphy is set to ride. The idea is to rebuild his confidence by running him without hurdles, getting him back into a racing rhythm, and then sending him to Cheltenham with one clean run behind him. It is creative, it is brave, and it is the kind of lateral thinking that Henderson has employed throughout his career. Charlie Johnston, the Flat trainer, was less impressed, questioning whether a "glorified bumper" could tell connections anything meaningful about the Champion Hurdle.

There is drama even in the Southwell plan. The race was oversubscribed with 32 entries and a random ballot on Sunday left Constitution Hill 16th in the elimination order for a maximum field of 14. Henderson admitted there is "no Plan B." As of Saturday evening, he needs at least two horses ahead of him not to declare on Wednesday morning. If the maximum field drops to 12 due to stabling issues, he would need four withdrawals. The absurdity of a former Champion Hurdle winner potentially being balloted out of a Flat novice at Southwell is the kind of storyline that only National Hunt racing could produce.

At 5.00 (4/1), Constitution Hill represents either the bet of the meeting or a donation to the bookmaker. If he gets into Southwell, runs well, arrives at Cheltenham on a high, and jumps the eight flights cleanly, his raw ability is enough to win this race by daylight. The "if" is doing an enormous amount of heavy lifting in that sentence. Favourites have won nine of the last 13 Champion Hurdles, but no favourite has ever arrived with three falls in his last four hurdle starts.


Lossiemouth: The Best Horse Who Probably Will Not Run

If Lossiemouth were to line up in the Champion Hurdle, she would arguably be the one to beat. Willie Mullins' seven-year-old mare has a perfect three-from-three record at the Cheltenham Festival, having won the Triumph Hurdle and back-to-back Mares' Hurdles. She is a proven Cheltenham performer with the class, speed and experience to handle Championship company. She won the December Hurdle at Leopardstown, beating Brighterdaysahead by a length, and while she was turned over in the Irish Champion Hurdle, Townend was clearly unhappy with how she was going from a long way out.

The near-universal expectation, however, is that Mullins will send her to the Mares' Hurdle for a hat-trick rather than risk her in the Champion Hurdle. Elliott has Wodhooh for the Mares', meaning Lossiemouth would not have a walkover, but the opposition there is considerably less daunting. History suggests Mullins goes for "the most winnable option," and that looks like the Mares' race. She is already the clear favourite for it at around 1.83 (5/6). If she is declared for the Champion Hurdle, the market will shift dramatically. Until then, her 7.00 Champion Hurdle price reflects the likelihood that she goes elsewhere.


Golden Ace: The Defending Champion Nobody Trusts

Golden Ace's story is one of the most heartwarming in recent Festival history. Jeremy Scott's mare was a 26.00 shot when she capitalised on the falls of Constitution Hill (fifth hurdle) and State Man (last hurdle) to win the 2025 Champion Hurdle and become only the seventh mare to take the race. She stayed on strongest up the hill for jockey Lorcan Williams to beat 67.00 shot Burdett Road by nine lengths, with 151.00 shot Winter Fog third and the fancied Brighterdaysahead a distant fourth.

This season she has continued to show the consistent form that is her hallmark. She won the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle, albeit once again benefiting from the falls of Constitution Hill and The New Lion, beating Anzadam and Nemean Lion. She then finished second behind Sir Gino in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton on Boxing Day, which is comfortably the best piece of form achieved by the winner of those two races. Sir Gino was a potential superstar, and Golden Ace was the closest to him that day.

Scott intended to run her in the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton yesterday but withdrew due to heavy ground, saying he would head straight to Cheltenham. He sounded more optimistic than at the same stage last year, saying his team were "more optimistic than when successful in the 2025 Champion Hurdle." Colin Tizzard, present at Wincanton for son Joe's runner Alexei, noted that Golden Ace won the 2025 Kingwell before winning the Champion Hurdle, and that "the first and second both went on to be first and second at Cheltenham."

At 9.00, Golden Ace offers genuine value if you believe she is a legitimate Champion Hurdler and not merely a beneficiary of carnage. Her Cheltenham record is perfect: she won the Mares' Novices' Hurdle in 2024 and the Champion Hurdle in 2025. She handles the track, the hill and the occasion. Scott prefers better ground and Cheltenham in March often rides more favourably than the midwinter going she has encountered this season. The question is whether she has the raw speed to beat Brighterdaysahead and The New Lion in a race run at genuine Championship pace, which has never truly been tested in a straight fight.


The Outsiders Worth Noting

Alexei made a compelling case for a Champion Hurdle berth by winning the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton yesterday (February 14th), stepping up to Grade 2 level for the first time after an emphatic six-length Greatwood Hurdle victory at Cheltenham in November and a valuable Ascot handicap earlier in the season. Trained by Joe Tizzard and ridden by Brendan Powell, he quickened clear of Rubaud to win by a length and a quarter. Tizzard said afterwards "whether he's good enough we'll find out" but confirmed the Champion Hurdle was the target. His father Colin noted the trial form: "the last year's first and second went on to be first and second at Cheltenham." At around 17.00, Alexei is an improving British-trained horse who handles Cheltenham and has the Kingwell form tie that has produced multiple Champion Hurdle winners. He is an outsider but not a no-hoper.

Poniros finished third in the Irish Champion Hurdle behind Brighterdaysahead and Lossiemouth, which puts him in the frame of the strongest trial for this race. Willie Mullins' Triumph Hurdle winner from 2025 was sent off at 34.00 that day and ran on well enough to suggest he belongs in this grade, even if the gap to the front two was clear. At 17.00, he is unlikely to trouble the principals but could run into a place if the race falls apart, which the Champion Hurdle has a habit of doing.

Anzadam, also from the Mullins yard, is too keen for his own good. He pulled hard in the December Hurdle and was beaten nearly seven lengths by Lossiemouth. He had previously finished second in the Fighting Fifth behind Golden Ace, only a length and a half back, which is actually decent form, but his temperament makes him a risky bet. El Fabiolo holds a Champion Hurdle entry but would likely be deployed as a pacemaker for whichever Mullins runner lines up.


Trends and Betting Outlook

Time Stamp: Saturday, February 15, 2026, 5:00 PM ET
Odds Subject to Change
Source: Bet365

Favourites have won nine of the last 13 Champion Hurdles, making this one of the most form-reliable championship races at the Festival. The obvious problem with applying that trend in 2026 is that the favourite keeps changing and nobody is particularly short. When Faugheen, Buveur d'Air, Honeysuckle and Constitution Hill won, they were all odds-on or close to it. The current market leaders are in the 3.50-3.75 range, which is closer to the prices that produced shock winners like Espoir d'Allen at 17.00 in 2019 and Golden Ace at 26.00 in 2025.

Five of the last six winners ran in either the Christmas Hurdle or the Irish Champion Hurdle on their previous start. Brighterdaysahead (Irish Champion Hurdle winner) and Golden Ace (Christmas Hurdle second) both fit that profile. The New Lion won the Unibet Hurdle, which has not been as reliable a trial. Constitution Hill has not run over hurdles since November and would be relying on a Flat outing as his prep, which is entirely unprecedented.

The race has been won by seven mares in its history, including three of the last six (Honeysuckle 2021-22, Golden Ace 2025). Brighterdaysahead and Golden Ace are both mares, and if Lossiemouth were to turn up, that would make three of the leading contenders female. The division has never been stronger in terms of quality mares, and this trend is increasingly relevant.

Age-wise, ten of the last 12 winners were aged between five and nine, with six and seven being the sweet spots. The New Lion (6), Brighterdaysahead (7) and Golden Ace (8) all fit. Constitution Hill at nine is at the outer edge but not beyond it. Previous course form is important: 11 of the last 12 winners had run at Cheltenham before. All the leading contenders tick that box except Brighterdaysahead, whose two Festival runs produced a blank, and that is a genuine negative for the market leader.


The Verdict

This is the most open Champion Hurdle in years, and the honest assessment is that making a confident selection is nearly impossible. Every contender has a clear positive and a clear negative. Brighterdaysahead has the best trial form but cannot win at Cheltenham. The New Lion has the best Festival pedigree for his age but has never raced at this speed. Constitution Hill has the most ability but might fall over. Golden Ace has the course record but might not have the class. The punter's dilemma is real.

The value play in this race may well be Golden Ace at 9.00. She is the defending champion, has a perfect Cheltenham record across two Festivals, produced the best piece of form achieved by any runner against Sir Gino this season, and goes straight to the race without a hard run on heavy ground. Her trainer is more confident than last year, she handles the track, and the Champion Hurdle has a habit of producing chaos that favours the horse who stays on their feet and gets up the hill. At 9.00, she offers a significant edge over the market leaders in a race where nothing is certain.

Brighterdaysahead at 3.50 has the strongest credentials on raw form and the Irish Champion Hurdle trial is gold-standard. If you believe her Cheltenham failures were circumstantial rather than systemic, she is the most likely winner. The New Lion at 3.75 offers a similar argument from the British side, backed by Walsh's endorsement, but is ultimately stepping into the unknown at Championship level. Constitution Hill at 5.00 is a bet on sentiment as much as form, and one that requires everything to go right for the first time in 18 months.

The Southwell run on Friday February 20th, if it happens, will be the next major data point for the Champion Hurdle picture. If Constitution Hill gets in and runs well, his price will shorten dramatically. The market will continue to shift significantly between now and March 10th depending on whether Lossiemouth is declared for the Champion or the Mares' Hurdle, which could happen as late as declaration stage. This is a race to watch rather than plunge on at this stage, with Golden Ace, Brighterdaysahead and The New Lion the three names to keep at the top of any shortlist.


Quick Reference: Key Odds

Time Stamp: Saturday, February 15, 2026, 5:00 PM ET
Odds Subject to Change
Source: Bet365

Brighterdaysahead 3.50 | Trainer: Gordon Elliott | Jockey: Jack Kennedy

The New Lion 3.75 | Trainer: Dan Skelton | Jockey: Harry Skelton

Constitution Hill 5.00 | Trainer: Nicky Henderson | Jockey: Nico de Boinville

Lossiemouth 7.00 | Trainer: Willie Mullins | Jockey: Paul Townend

Golden Ace 9.00 | Trainer: Jeremy Scott | Jockey: Lorcan Williams

Alexei 17.00 | Trainer: Joe Tizzard | Jockey: Brendan Powell

Poniros 17.00 | Trainer: Willie Mullins | Jockey: TBC

Anzadam 26.00 | Trainer: Willie Mullins | Jockey: TBC


2025 Champion Hurdle Result

1st Golden Ace (26.00) - Jeremy Scott / Lorcan Williams
2nd Burdett Road (67.00) - James Owen / Sam Twiston-Davies
3rd Winter Fog (151.00) - W P Mullins / Brian Hayes
4th Brighterdaysahead (3.50) - Gordon Elliott / Jack Kennedy
FELL Constitution Hill (1.50f) - Nicky Henderson / Nico de Boinville
FELL State Man (9.00) - W P Mullins / Paul Townend
7 ran | Distance: 9L


Last 5 Winners
2025: Golden Ace 26.00 (25/1) - Jeremy Scott
2024: State Man 2.25 (5/4f) - Willie Mullins
2023: Constitution Hill 1.30 (3/10f) - Nicky Henderson
2022: Honeysuckle 1.36 (4/11f) - Henry de Bromhead
2021: Honeysuckle 3.25 (9/4f) - Henry de Bromhead


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