Cheltenham Festival 2026: Trainers To Track
The Cheltenham Festival is never just about the horses. Every year it becomes a test of which trainers have targeted the meeting best, which yards arrive deepest in numbers and which operations have the proven knack of peaking their runners for the biggest week of the jumping season. Look back over the last decade and the same names keep surfacing, whether that is through brute-force dominance, one exceptional Festival haul or a habit of landing the week’s most prestigious prizes.
With Cheltenham 2026 almost here, the trainer picture is again one of the strongest storylines of the meeting. Willie Mullins once more heads the cast list, but there are several other major yards with realistic hopes of shaping the week. Here is a closer look at the trainers most likely to matter, the standout Festivals they have already produced in the last ten years and the runners who could carry their colours to more success next week.
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Willie Mullins
If this article is about the trainers most likely to dominate Cheltenham 2026, it has to start with Willie Mullins. He was the leading trainer at the Festival again in 2025 with 10 winners, matching his own record haul from 2022, and he also topped the table in 2024 with nine winners. More broadly, Mullins has now been leading trainer eight times in the last ten Festivals, with only Gordon Elliott interrupting that sequence in 2017 and 2018. When one yard is capable of winning almost every type of race at the meeting, from bumpers to championship chases, it is impossible to frame Cheltenham without putting it at the centre of the story.
There is substance behind that reputation too. His 2025 team was not carried by one horse or one division, and that is what makes him so hard to oppose year after year. He had the firepower to strike repeatedly across the week, and that has become the defining theme of the modern Festival. It is not simply that Mullins trains stars. It is that he arrives with waves of them, and when the meeting gets rolling the Closutton runners can quickly turn the week into a numbers game nobody else can live with.
As for 2026, his best chances are easy to spot. Fact To File is being strongly linked with the Ryanair Chase, while Majborough heads his Champion Chase team and has been widely flagged as one of the yard’s bankers. Lossiemouth remains one of the headline names in the meeting, while Galopin Des Champs, Gaelic Warrior and a deep novice squad ensure Mullins is once again loaded with ammunition. Even in races where he does not have a clear favourite, he often has enough depth to dominate the market shape. That is why he still looks the trainer everyone else has to beat.
Gordon Elliott
Gordon Elliott remains the most obvious recent example of a trainer capable of breaking Mullins’ grip on the Festival. He was leading trainer in both 2017 and 2018, and that 2018 meeting in particular still stands out as one of the most powerful weeks any yard has produced in the modern era. Elliott sent out eight winners across the four days, equalling the record haul at the time, and did it with the kind of spread that showed how potent Cullentra can be when the stable is fully firing. Those seasons established him as far more than a handicap plotter. He proved he could flood the week with contenders and keep collecting in some of the biggest races of the week.
He has not been able to wrestle overall control back from Mullins in recent years, but he remains one of the most significant Festival trainers around. His 2025 return was only one winner, but he still had four seconds and six thirds, which is important in itself because it shows the horses are still getting competitive at the sharp end of Festival races even if the strike rate was not spectacular. There is still a lot of substance in the yard’s Cheltenham challenge.
For 2026, Elliott looks set to be represented by some of the most talked-about horses in the meeting. Brighterdaysahead has emerged as a major Champion Hurdle player, Wodhooh is a leading mare after already winning at the Festival in 2025, Teahupoo is back in the Stayers’ Hurdle picture, and El Cairos has been highlighted as one of the stable’s more interesting Supreme contenders since the infamous Labaik. Elliott may not have the same all-encompassing depth as Mullins this time around, but his top end is still serious and he has enough headline horses to shape several of the week’s biggest races.
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Henry de Bromhead
Henry de Bromhead’s place in any Cheltenham trainers piece is secure because of what happened in 2021. That Festival was extraordinary. He saddled six winners and became the first trainer ever to win the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup in the same year. Honeysuckle, Put The Kettle On and Minella Indo provided the three championship race victories, and that remains one of the most memorable single-Festival performances by any trainer in the last decade. When people talk about a yard having a Cheltenham to remember, that is the benchmark.
The reason de Bromhead still commands such respect is that his Festival success has not been limited to one extraordinary season. He has continued to collect major prizes and he still looks especially dangerous whenever he brings a horse for a championship race or a top novice chase. His runners often arrive battle-hardened and his stable has shown repeatedly that it knows how to have one cherry-ripe for Prestbury Park.
Looking at 2026, Bob Olinger is the obvious standard-bearer after being put forward as one of the yard’s headline hopes for the Stayers’ Hurdle, while Koktail Divin gives him a serious novice-chase angle in the Brown Advisory picture. Envoi Allen and Heart Wood are also among his staying and intermediate-chase entries, and that gives de Bromhead options in the big Thursday and Friday races. He may not have Mullins’ depth, but if he lands one of the championship prizes again nobody will be surprised.
Nicky Henderson
Nicky Henderson’s last decade at Cheltenham has been less about all-out domination and more about continuing relevance at the very top level, which in itself says plenty. He has not led the trainers’ table in that ten-year spell, but he remains one of the defining names of the Festival and his runners are still central to the narrative of the biggest races. In 2025 he had two winners and four seconds, a strong rebound after drawing a blank in 2024, and that underlined the point that Seven Barrows still matters enormously when the tapes go up in March.
Henderson’s strength is that he does not need a huge army to make his mark. One or two top-class horses can put him right at the centre of the week, and historically he has always been a trainer to fear when he turns up with a live one in a championship race. That is why his Festival record continues to carry such weight even in years when the sheer numbers are not there to compete with Mullins.
This year the obvious Henderson talking points are Jango Baie and Old Park Star, with Jango Baie in the Gold Cup conversation after his 2025 Arkle success and Old Park Star favourite to kick the Festival off in style in the opening race, the Supreme. If Henderson is to have a Festival that really resonates in 2026, it is likely to come through one of those headline names rather than through sheer volume.
Dan Skelton
Dan Skelton is the British trainer whose recent Cheltenham progress has been easiest to quantify. His 2024 Festival was a genuine statement, with four winners, Grey Dawning, Unexpected Party, Protektorat and Langer Dan, which pushed him to second in the leading trainer standings behind Mullins. He then followed up in 2025 with The New Lion, showing that 2024 was not some one-off purple patch. Over the last few Festivals he has started to feel less like an up-and-coming British challenger and more like a yard with an established Cheltenham identity.
What gives Skelton’s record real weight is that his winners have not all come from one angle. He has struck in handicaps, novice races and at Grade 1 level, which suggests the operation is now broad enough to attack the meeting in several ways. That matters because Cheltenham is hard to conquer if you only have one type of horse. The best Festival yards keep finding openings all week, and Skelton’s team has looked increasingly good at that.
For 2026, The New Lion is the headline act after being put in as a Champion Hurdle contender, while Grey Dawning gives the stable a live Gold Cup angle and Protektorat is back among the Ryanair options. Mydaddypaddy has also been identified as a notable novice hope. Skelton may not have the Irish depth overall, but if you are looking for the British trainer most likely to make a proper dent in the week, his recent Cheltenham record makes the case for him better than anyone else.
The broader picture is fairly clear. Mullins remains the trainer most likely to define Cheltenham 2026 because the last decade says nobody else can match his depth, and the likely presence of horses such as Fact To File, Majborough, Lossiemouth and Galopin Des Champs only strengthens that view. Elliott still has enough top-level ammunition to land several major blows, de Bromhead has already shown he can own a Festival when the stars align, Henderson has the sort of top-class individuals who can turn the week in one race, and Skelton has built the most persuasive recent British case of all. Cheltenham is always a story of horses, but just as often it is the trainers who tell you where the week is going.
