Key events
Here are the day two market movers and most popular bets:
Market movers:
Jingko Blue – 5/1 from 10/1
Pied Piper – 10/1 from 22/1
Bossman Jack – 9/1 out to 16/1
Most popular bets:
Majborough – 46% of Champion Chase bets
No Drama This End – 28% of Turners bets
Romeo Coolio – 24% of Brown Advisory bets
All odds via Oddschecker.
Sean Ingle reports on day one, with plenty of positives to report after a buildup marked by in-fighting and concerns for racing’s future.
Preamble
Greg Wood
Good morning from Cheltenham racecourse on day two of the 2026 festival meeting: Champion Chase day, and also now Ladies’ Day, as the track attempts to address the most obvious hole in the crowd figures after three straight years of declining attendance.
Last year’s Wednesday attendance dipped below 42,000 for the first time, and also below the (record) figure for the New Year’s Day fixture here two months ago. It might seem a little cursory to slap a “Ladies’ Day” tag on the card and expect a significant boost to the crowd, but hey, it’s worked like a charm for racecourses the length and breadth of the country over the last 20 years, so why not give it a try?
It should not, after all, be a difficult sell. The Champion Chase is one of four Grade One races on the card – the other three days have only three – and while the feature race is typically low on numbers, and sadly missing a defending champion too after Marine Nationale was ruled out last week, the quixotic Majborough is an intriguing favourite, likely to divide punters fairly evenly over whether he should be backed or opposed.
The going at Cheltenham is slightly quicker today, having shifted from good-to-soft to good-to-soft (good in places), and the action is underway at 1.20pm with the Turners Novice Hurdle, where Paul Nicholls’s No Drama This End will set off as favourite and attempt to complete an opening-race double for British yards after their 1-2-3-4 in the Supreme Novice Hurdle on Tuesday.
There is a maximum field for the 3m 1f Broadway Novice Chase at 2.00, vindicating the decision to axe the Turners Novice Chase over two-and-a-half miles. You can follow all the action, as always, here on the blog throughout the afternoon.
