Founder & Editor · Last reviewed 2026-08-24
One yard's grip on the modern championships
Four championship races, four different disciplines within jumps racing, and one name keeps appearing across all of them. Willie Mullins and Paul Townend, trainer and jockey, most recently combined to win the Champion Hurdle (Lossiemouth), the Queen Mother Champion Chase (Il Etait Temps) and the Cheltenham Gold Cup (Gaelic Warrior) in the same week, missing out only on the Stayers' Hurdle. Three of the four championships, one partnership.
That is not a one-off. Mullins has now trained the Gold Cup winner five times, level with Tom Dreaper's historic record, and Townend has ridden five Gold Cup winners himself, level with Pat Taaffe. The scale of what one yard has built across Prestbury Park's four championship days, in a sport with dozens of serious training operations across Britain and Ireland, is worth understanding before you look at a single market price.
This page works through what the last several decades of results actually show for each of the four championship races: winning ages, how often the favourite obliges, and which trainers and jockeys keep coming back. Every figure below is computed directly from Stablebet's race-research store, not estimated, and every one shows its own basis, how many winners the pattern is drawn from and over what span, so a claim resting on four data points reads differently to one resting on fifty.
A trend is a description of the past, not a prediction. None of what follows tells you who wins in 2027. It tells you what has tended to matter: whether experience trumps novelty at this level, whether the market is usually right about the championship races, and which names have earned the benefit of the doubt.
The four championships, by the numbers
Champion Hurdle (Tuesday)
Nicky Henderson is the race's record trainer with nine winners, a mark built over four decades, though the most recent renewal went to Willie Mullins. Recent champions have tended to arrive with hurdling class already proven, dual winners like Honeysuckle and Buveur d'Air rather than one-season wonders.
The trends
Winning age
- 6yo
- 38%
- 7yo
- 34%
- 8yo
- 13%
- 5yo
- 7%
Age known for 56 of 56 winners (1970–2026)
Market
- Started favourite
- 48%
- Won at 10/1 or bigger
- 20%
- Won at 5/1 or shorter
- 55%
Starting price known for 56 of 56 winners (1970–2026)
Trainers & jockeys
- Most successful trainer
- Nicky Henderson (9)
- Most successful jockey
- Barry Geraghty (4)
56 runnings (1970–2026)
Queen Mother Champion Chase (Wednesday)
The two-mile chasing championship has been shared out among a small group of powerhouse yards, Henderson, de Bromhead, Nicholls and Mullins between them account for most of the recent winners' list. Winning age clusters tightly around a horse's physical peak for the discipline.
The trends
Winning age
- 8yo
- 36%
- 9yo
- 25%
- 10yo
- 14%
- 7yo
- 13%
Age known for 56 of 56 winners (1970–2026)
Market
- Started favourite
- 30%
- Won at 10/1 or bigger
- 13%
- Won at 5/1 or shorter
- 68%
Starting price known for 56 of 56 winners (1970–2026)
Trainers & jockeys
- Most successful trainer
- Nicky Henderson (6)
- Most successful jockey
- Barry Geraghty (5)
56 runnings (1970–2026)
Stayers' Hurdle (Thursday)
The most wide-open of the four. Big-priced winners are a real feature of this race rather than an exception, Sire Du Berlais and Home By The Lee both won at 33/1, and Irish yards, Elliott, de Bromhead, Mullins, Joseph O'Brien, have dominated the recent honours list between them.
The trends
Winning age
- 7yo
- 31%
- 6yo
- 30%
- 8yo
- 20%
- 9yo
- 11%
Age known for 54 of 54 winners (1972–2026)
Market
- Started favourite
- 31%
- Won at 10/1 or bigger
- 30%
- Won at 5/1 or shorter
- 48%
Starting price known for 54 of 54 winners (1972–2026)
Trainers & jockeys
- Most successful trainer
- Paul Nicholls (4)
- Most successful jockey
- Ruby Walsh (5)
54 runnings (1972–2026)
Cheltenham Gold Cup (Friday)
Jump racing's biggest prize, and the race the Mullins/Townend partnership has made its own: five wins each, a joint record with Tom Dreaper and Pat Taaffe respectively. Repeat winners are a real pattern here too, Al Boum Photo and Galopin Des Champs both won in back-to-back years before this one.
The trends
Winning age
- 8yo
- 38%
- 7yo
- 27%
- 9yo
- 23%
- 10yo
- 11%
Age known for 56 of 56 winners (1970–2026)
Market
- Started favourite
- 30%
- Won at 10/1 or bigger
- 24%
- Won at 5/1 or shorter
- 44%
Starting price known for 54 of 56 winners (1970–2026)
Trainers & jockeys
- Most successful trainer
- Willie Mullins (5)
- Most successful jockey
- Paul Townend (5)
56 runnings (1970–2026)
Where to Bet
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How to actually use this
What actually carries across all four races
Two patterns show up in every championship, not just one. First, experience matters more than a fashionable name: the winning-age data across all four races clusters around horses at the mature end of their discipline, not the youngest in the field. Second, the market is right more often than it is wrong at this level, championship races are the most heavily scrutinised form of the entire jumps season, and a short-priced favourite in a Grade 1 has usually earned that price.
Where the trends diverge is instructive too. The Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup have both produced real dual champions in recent years, evidence that the top of each division can stay settled for consecutive seasons. The Stayers' Hurdle is the opposite case, a race where a big-priced winner is a real, recurring feature rather than a shock, and where reading the market too literally has cost people money.
What this page is not
This is a description of what has happened, drawn from every recorded running back to the 1970s where the data allows it, not a prediction of what happens next. A yard's grip on a championship can end without warning, and a race's history of big-priced winners does not make the next big price a good bet on its own. Treat every figure above as context for reading the market once it forms, not a substitute for it.
For our full read of the four championship races once declarations are in, see the Cheltenham Festival tips. For how our own model's predictions have actually fared, win and lose alike, the Stablebet track record is published in full.
Where to bet
For the current comparison of extra places, Best Odds Guaranteed and Non-Runner-No-Bet cover across the Festival's bookmakers, see our Cheltenham Festival betting offers page.
Responsible note: trends are a way of reading a race, not a system for beating one. Bet only money you can afford to lose, set deposit limits, and take regular breaks. BeGambleAware.org.
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