Cheltenham Festival 2026: When Are Entry Dates For Each Race?
The 2026 Cheltenham Festival entries are now being made, giving punters up and down the land a clearer picture regarding which horses will be running at the Festival in March. Here we detail the different dates entries are being made and give easy access into our big race pages where you can easily compare runners and odds.
The first set of entries will be made on Tuesday 6th January with the three champion chase races being covered - that's the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Queen Mother Champion Chase and Ryanair Chase.
A week later on Tuesday 13th January it's the entry stage for the big hurdle races - the Champion Hurdle, Stayers' Hurdle and Mares' Hurdle.
There are then several other key dates, set out in the list below, for the remaining Cheltenham Festival races with the final declarations for each race being made 48 hours prior to race day.
The 2026 Cheltenham Festival will run from Tuesday 10th to Friday 13th March 2026 so the 48 hour decs for Tuesday's races will be made on Sunday 8th March.
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2026 Cheltenham Festival Entries Release Dates
Here you can find the entry dates for all 28 races at the 2026 Festival.
Tuesday 8th January 2026
Tuesday 13th January 2026
Tuesday 20th January 2026
- Arkle Challenge Trophy
- Brown Advisory Novices' Chase
- Supreme Novices Hurdle
- Turners Novices Hurdle
- Triumph Hurdle
- Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle
Tuesday 10th February 2026
Tuesday 17th February 2026
- Ultima Handicap Chase
- Coral Cup
- Boodles Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle
- Pertemps Final
- TrustATrader Plate
- Kim Muir Challenge Cup
- County Hurdle
- Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys Hurdle
- Grand Annual Chase
- Cross Country Chase
- Novices Handicap Chase
- National Hunt Chase
Tuesday 24th February 2026
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Cheltenham Festival at HorseRacing.net
Now that we've ticked over in 2026 you can expect lots of great content on the site as we build up to the 2026 Cheltenham Festival including weekly insights from our columnist Road To Cheltenham as well as the latest entries and odds information in our Cheltenham Festival hub.
- Check out the latest Cheltenham Odds from our range of bookmaker partners.
- Discover the best Cheltenham Free Bets and betting offers available now.
- Review archived Cheltenham Results from last year's Festival.
And away from the Festival, we'll continue to have daily horse racing tips from our big priced tipster Raceolly as well as easy to digest horse racing stats for the daily racing. We're looking forward to another brilliant year of racing in 2026.
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