You already know what Lossiemouth did at the 2026 Cheltenham Festival. You know, because everyone who watched it felt the same thing — that collective realisation that this spectacular mare was simply built for Prestbury Park.
Backed into a 7/5 favourite to win the Champion Hurdle and then delivering, winning by six lengths and delivering her expectant punters a return, unlike Constitution Hill 12 months prior.
And then, four days later, Gaelic Warrior. Willie Mullins, Paul Townend, 11/4 joint-favourite, the Cheltenham Gold Cup delivered to the Closutton machine by eight lengths as Townend claimed a record fifth win in steeplechasing’s greatest race.
Two headlines. Two performances of clinical, market-confirming dominance that reminded the sport what genuine quality looks like when it arrives at its proper stage.
But here’s what 2026 really was: a Festival that punished certainty. Only eight favourites won from 28 races.
The BBC called it the year of the outsider. A nose at 66/1. A 50/1 record-equaller. A course-switch masterstroke at 40/1. Let’s take a look at them.
Martator, 66/1 — Grand Annual Handicap Chase
Let’s be honest about where Venetia Williams’ season stood when Cheltenham arrived. Seven winners between October and December. A blank January.
Martator’s most recent outing at Sandown had ended with the gelding unseating Charlie Deutsch in a handicap chase — not exactly the form line that makes an ante-post punter reach for the phone.
And yet, connections rolled the dice. First-time blinkers, to sharpen a horse who had been running through cotton wool. A simple brief from Williams to Deutsch: go at your own pace, don’t worry about them, and see what happens.
Nobody in the Grand Annual betting market was listening. Jazzy Matty, the defending champion, went off as an 8/1 shot with the horse racing at Bovada odds, while Martator opened at 66/1 and stayed there, because nobody wanted him.
What happened next is the reason people stand for four hours in March rain at Prestbury Park. Deutsch crept wide throughout, hugging the outside rail — a line that suited Martator’s small frame and kept him clear of the early carnage — and simply let the horse find himself.
He met the final fences on a perfect stride, winged them with a fluency that had no business existing in a 66/1 shot, and in the final furlong came alive. A nose on the line.
Jazzy Matty denied a famous repeat. Break My Soul (20/1) third, Release The Beast (10/1) fourth; the defending champion had run his race, jumped brilliantly, done nothing wrong — simply couldn’t hold off a horse that the market had dismissed without a second thought.
“When you’ve had a season like we’ve had,” Deutsch said afterwards, his voice barely holding, “I wasn’t really looking forward to Cheltenham — because it’s been disappointment after disappointment and there’s only so much you can take.
“I didn’t believe I had a chance until I turned in, when I thought, ‘Here we go.'” Williams was screaming so hard she’d lost her voice.
This was Cheltenham’s biggest-priced winner of 2026. A nose. At 66/1. Catharsis doesn’t get purer.
Apolon De Charnie, 50/1 — JCB Triumph Hurdle
Who on earth could have predicted this? Well — one person could. Sporting Life’s Ben Linfoot tipped Apolon De Charnie at 40/1 in his pre-race verdict, clearly having done the homework while the rest of the market focused on Proactif at 7/2.
Here is the central irony of the JCB Triumph Hurdle: the 7/2 favourite who went off as the banker was a Willie Mullins horse — and so was the 50/1 winner.
Proactif had beaten Apolon De Charnie on their only previous hurdles meeting at Auteuil, when the winner was still trained in France by Yannick Fouin before Mullins purchased him and brought him to Closutton.
British challengers Maestro Conti (5/1) and Minella Study (7/1) were also fancied. Of Mullins’ nine runners in the race — nine — the one getting serious money wasn’t this one.
Patrick Mullins rode with the patience of someone who grew up watching Closutton operate from the inside. Mid-division, unhurried, watching the race unfold through a forest of rivals.
Still seven horses ahead of him turning in. Then, on the long Cheltenham run to the final flight, smooth, relentless, sustained headway. Apolon De Charnie arrived on terms with Maestro Conti and the tiring Minella Study, jumped the last with authority, pulled clear.
Maestro Conti second. Minella Study third. Proactif — the one who’d already beaten him — finished well back, failing to justify a penny of the market confidence placed in him.
A seventh Triumph Hurdle triumph for Willie Mullins, equalling Nicky Henderson’s record as the most successful trainer in the race’s history.
The Auteuil defeat now looks not like a warning, but like a horse whose ceiling simply hadn’t been reached. Linfoot had done the work. The market had not. The Closutton conveyor belt, running at its quietly devastating best.
White Noise, 40/1 — Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle
Kingston Queen had beaten her by three-quarters of a length at Warwick in February — Grade 2, heavy ground, 2m3f — and the market had drawn its conclusions accordingly. Some bookmakers went 80/1 on White Noise the morning of the race.
David Pipe’s unbeaten favourite went off at 11/4, and that appeared entirely logical. But Kim Bailey and Mat Nicholls had found an angle.
The switch to Cheltenham’s New Course over a stiffer two miles was a fundamentally different test; the Warwick form, obtained in conditions that favoured the favourite, would mean nothing here.
Tom Bellamy — seeking his first Festival winner after years of riding with distinction without that defining moment — was sent out to make all from the front. What he produced at the start, securing prime position when it mattered most, Mat Nicholls later called “absolute genius.”
White Noise made every yard of running from there, travelling well throughout, never seriously threatened. A superb leap at the final flight ended the contest before the hill could intervene; she pulled clear by one and a quarter lengths from Oldschool Outlaw.
Kingston Queen couldn’t reverse Warwick form. The ground was different, the course was different, the result was different — and connections knew it would be.
Nicholls needed a moment afterwards. First Festival winner for the joint-training partnership. Bellamy finally standing in a Cheltenham winner’s enclosure, wearing an expression anyone who has waited a long time for something will recognise immediately.
The course switch was the masterstroke. The market, at 80/1 on the morning before being backed into 40s, had simply not done the reading.
