There is an affinity between Ireland and Cheltenham in a way that no other British can come close to matching. Each year sees tens of thousands of Irish visitors descend on the course and let’s be honest it is the Irish visitors that contribute the most to the atmosphere. The enthusiasm is justified too when you consider how dominant Irish trained horse have been at the Cheltenham Festival over the last couple of decades.
Naturally, many of us are here not just to watch the races but to bet on them too. If you are betting around the Festival then bookies at this time will push out some of the most valuable offers you will see all year. If you are looking for an Irish welcome offer for Cheltenham then look no further.
Irish Free Bets For Cheltenham
The Irish & The Cheltenham Festival
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If you know anything about the Cheltenham Festival, it is likely to be that the Irish absolutely love it. What you might not know, though, is why. Every March, citizens from the Emerald Isle flock over to Prestbury Park to enjoy the Gloucestershire hospitality, as well as to watch horses raised and trained in their country enjoy a wealth of success at Cheltenham Racecourse. It wasn’t always the case, but from the moment that Golden Miller won his fifth successive Gold Cup, having been trained by Laurence Geraghty in Pelletstown, County Meath, the love of the Irish was a lock.
Since then, the battle between Irish and British trainers has raged, waxing and waning from year to year. The Prestbury Cup is awarded to the country that sees the most winners during the course of each year’s Festival. In the modern era, there is little question that the Irish have dominated, which also helps explain why they love it so much. In terms of the relationship between the Emerald Isle and Cheltenham, the fact that the Festival takes place around St. Patrick’s Day also helps the relationship, with most people at Prestbury Park enjoying a pint of Guinness or two.
The History Of The Irish & Cheltenham
If you have a look at the history books of the Cheltenham Festival, you’ll see that the second running of the Gold Cup in 1925 was nicknamed ‘the Sligo Mare’, thanks to the fact that she came from County Sligo in Ireland. In other words, there has long been a link between Ireland and the Cheltenham Festival, with Prestbury Park long-since thought of as something of a proving ground for the best trainers and horses from the Irish racing community.
The history of the Irish and Cheltenham includes the success of Golden Miller, who won the Gold Cup five times in succession and matched that up with a Grand National win in 1934.
It isn’t just the horses that link the Irish and the Festival together, either. During his career, Ruby Walsh was one of the most successful jockeys of all time, whilst no trainer has seen more winners cross the line in first than Willie Mullins. Even so, names like Arkle, one of the finest Irish-bred horses ever, won the Gold Cup three times to earn his place in the history books. Dawn Mare is another Irish horse who is memorialised at Prestbury Park, whose statue stands opposite that of Arkle in the Parade Ring at the racecourse to remind everyone of what success looks like.
The Prestbury Cup
You can read about the Prestbury Cup in more detail elsewhere on this site, but you can’t talk about the Irish and Cheltenham without at least mentioning it. Though it is shaped more like a pepper pot than a cup and it was invented by the horse racing marketing team, make no mistake that there is plenty of pride at stake when it comes to trying to win it. It is awarded to either the British or the Irish trainers depending on which ones win the most races over the course of the Festival. As soon as one nation wins 15, they have won it, whilst 14 wins will see the previous winner retain it.
The interesting thing about the whole thing is that a horse could be bred in Ireland, ridden by an Irish rider, owned by someone from Ireland and started off its life taking part in Irish point-to-point races, to say nothing of having been trained by someone from Ireland, but if the actual training happens to take place in Britain then it will go down as a British winner. Even so, the media and punters alike tend to enjoy it, with the outcome of the competition showing the state of health of the two nations each year. The British dominated until 2013, but apart from 2015 and 2019, the Irish won it every year up to 2022.
St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day is the a cultural and religious celebration of the patron saint of Ireland. Held on the 17th of March each year, which is the traditional death date of the Saint, it is often one of the days of the Cheltenham Festival. The Irish, famously, don’t need much encouragement to have a party, so the combination of the meeting at Prestbury Park and the celebratory day of their patron saint is something that is too much for most to resist. When you also remember that a lot of Irish people love horse racing, it isn’t hard to see where there is an Irish influx to Gloucestershire ever March.
Of course, even the biggest partier would find it difficult to stomach their Guinness if what they were watching on the field wasn’t good, so the fact that the trainers, runners and jockeys are often so dominant helps to add to the atmosphere. There is also the fact that marketing is important, so it isn’t a shock to see Guinness’s branding all over Prestbury Park. They know that if they can get people drinking a pint of the black stuff then they’ll make money, which is why there is such a clear link between the company and the Festival that cements the relationship of the Irish.
The Jockeys Have Been Dominant
Despite the success of Irish horses at Cheltenham since that first win in the second-ever Gold Cup, Irish jockeys weren’t quite as dominant. That remained the case until Sir A.P. McCoy became the first Irish jockey to win back-to-back Leading Jockey titles in 1997 and 1998.
Remarkably, between then and 2022, only four British jockeys managed to win the title. That is largely thanks to the success of Willie Mullins, whose Closutton yard became a winning machine that the Irish jockeys were able to benefit from. When the likes of Henry de Bromhead and Gordon Elliott joined him, the Brits felt like they had no chance.
When you’ve got so many excellent trainers, it is hardly a surprise that the jockeys are going to benefit. There are enough top-class yards in Ireland to mean that that sort of thing is unlikely to change.
The winners of the Prestbury Cup will change from year to year and British jockeys will always have their day, but the link between the Cheltenham Festival and the Irish means that their jockeys will always target the meeting there before any other. Some of the biggest names in Irish racing have won at Prestbury Park and if there is a new one emerging at any point then they will probably do the same sooner or later.