2025 Cheltenham Festival News - New Schedule & Race Times

At the start of the National Hunt season, the BHA announced major changes to the Cheltenham Festival. These alterations included new races, changes to qualification criteria, and new time slots for the feature contests.

The official schedule for "The Greatest Show on Turf" was announced this week. Here are the new race cards for 2025.

To get more races on terrestrial television, the four Championship races have been moved back to the fifth time slot on each day of the Cheltenham Festival.

The 2025 Champion Hurdle will now be run at 4:00pm, with the Mares' Hurdle moving up to the fourth slot on day one. The National Hunt Chase reverts back to being a 0-145 novices' handicap and professional riders are now allowed to take part.

Much like day one, there have only been minor adjustments to the Ladies' Day schedule. The Cross Country Chase will now take place before the 2025 Queen Mother Champion Chase, which has been pushed back to slot five. 

Apart from the Baring Bingham now being run as the Turners Novices' Hurdle, the other day two races remain the same. 

The biggest Cheltenham Festival changes come on day three. The 2025 Stayers' Hurdle has been moved back to the 4:00pm slot, with the co-main event on St Patrick's Day, the Ryanair Chase now taking place at 3:20pm.

The Mares' Novices' Hurdle, which had been the penultimate race on day three, now opens Thursday's card. The second race is the Jack Richards Novices' Handicap Chase, which has replaced the Grade One 2m5f Novices' Chase on the Cheltenham Festival schedule. Being a Grade Two contest, the Jack Richards is likely to be a Limited Handicap, unlike the other 0-145 handicaps.

The 2025 Cheltenham Gold Cup will be run at 4:00pm on Friday, March 14th. The Grade Two Mares' Chase has been moved from the penultimate slot up to third on the day four schedule.

The Triumph Hurdle gets Gold Cup day off to a flying start at 1:20pm. The Hunter Chase will still take place after the Gold Cup, before the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle brings the festivities to an end.

ITV Racing will now show the first six races live on all four days of the Cheltenham Festival, with their afternoon coverage beginning at 5:00 p.m.