Become a Cheltenham Festival connoisseur in five minutes by understanding the ‘Irish connection’, why Istabraq and the pint-drinking Arkle went down in Festival folklore and how Cheltenham contenders Win Some lose Some and Teahupoo could be the ‘good things’ this year.

Around 1 billion pounds will be wagered on it across four days. Its flagship event – the Gold Cup – will alone attract over three and a half million pounds in bets. 65,0000 fans, many of whom are Irish, will attend it on a daily basis. More pints of Guinness are consumed across the Festival than there are people living in Andorra, the Isle of Man and the Virgin Islands combined.

Yes, it’s the one and only Cheltenham Festival, arguably the biggest racing week of the year and right up there with the biggest betting events of the calendar.

But there’s a lot more to it than just that. As we’re about to find out.

Keep reading and you’ll also find out how there’s far more to naming Cheltenham horses than first meets the eye, why the Irish love it so much and how it’s not good enough to just translate key racing terms, they need to be localised. And who knows? Follow our top two betting tips for the Festival and you may even end the Festival ‘in clover’. No Irish pun intended.

Learning the lingo, localising the lingo

Like all sports, horse racing has its own vocabulary, or terminology, if you prefer. Like with all sports, most of it will mean everything to the racing aficionado and almost nothing to the non-racing fan.

But if getting the concept across to the horseracing beginner in English (remembering that as the home of racing, most racing terms come from the English language) is hard enough, it’s twice as hard doing so in other languages. Here’s an example of what we mean.

An each-way bet is an extremely popular type of wager where half of your bet is put on the horse to win and the other half on the horse to place.

It’s particularly popular in races, as is the case with many of the Cheltenham ones, with lots of horses in it. That’s because it’s extremely hard to pick a winner in a race with 15+ horses in it, but if you back a big-priced horse each-way and it placed (finished in the Top 3 or 4 positions) you’d still make a decent profit on the back of that.

Parlez-vous français?

If you were writing in French about each-way betting and weren’t sure of the translation of the term into French, you might chance your arm with the use of Google Translate.
If so, this is what would come up: ‘parier dans chaque sens.’

Now, as a speaker of basic French only, I don’t have a clue what that means. But here’s what I do know: that’s certainly not the correct translation. And the reason I know that is because I asked someone who does actually speak fluent French.

The correct translation is ‘pari gagnant-placé.’, the pari part of it coming from Pari-mutuel, the French word for pools betting.

But you’ll only know the correct translation if you actually speak the language fluently AND are an expert on sports betting. Thankfully, we have plenty of translators and localizers here at All-in Global who are both, as we also have for just about every other language, too.

Como se diz isso em português?

Including Portuguese.

I put ‘each way betting’ into Google Translate and this time it came up with: ‘aposta em cada sentido’.

Now, as it happens, I do speak fluent Portuguese, and I can tell you right off the bat that translation is nonsense. Sure, it’s correct if you take each of the words and literally translate them. But it doesn’t mean anything.

The actual correct translation is simply ‘aposta each-way’.

“Ah, but that shows no knowledge of Portuguese at all and all you did was translate the bet part and then leave it as it was in English.” (we hear you say).
True, but that’s the correct translation.

You see, France has a long and rich history of horse racing and sports betting and over the centuries, they developed their own words for horseracing and horseracing betting terms.
Portugal doesn’t. Sports betting is a very recent thing. Up to 20 years ago, there was no such thing as going to a shop or placing a bet online on anything, other than playing the football pools, which is a totally different betting system.

Horse racing is virtually non-existent in the country. So, when Portugal embraced the online betting boom, many terms stayed as they were from English, rather than being translated in a contrived way just for the sake of it. Including each-way, of course.

History lesson over but the point is that only those ‘on the ground’, living in the actual country, will know these small details.

Luck of the Irish and love of the Irish…for Cheltenham

Ever wondered what the connection is between the Irish and Cheltenham Festival? Where it comes from? Why it goes so deep?
It’s a bit complicated but let’s try to get to the bottom of it.

First and foremost, Ireland has a tremendous history of breeding racehorses going back hundreds of years. They’re the country that gave us Arkle, Yeats, Shergar, See the Stars, Synchronised and so many others.

It’s the equivalent of Brazilian football giving us Pele, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo (the original one), Zico, Socrates and Roberto Carlos.

And where do all the best jumpers head to every year? Cheltenham.

They’ve also produced some of the greatest trainers: Dermot Weld, Aidan O’Brien, Willie Mullins and more recently, Gordon Elliott. And jockeys, such as Ruby Walsh, Tony McCoy, Jonny Murtagh, Rachael Blackmore and Michael Kinane. And where do they all go in search of racing glory by beating the crème de la creme of jumps racing? Cheltenham.

It therefore follows that the Irish, as a nation, take great interest in something (racing) that is a) in their blood and always has been and b) something they’re unusually good at.
That’s just human nature.

Prior to winning the 1983 Cricket World Cup, Indian cricket fans didn’t much care for the ODI format, only Test cricket. But then they beat the West Indies in the final of that tournament, against all odds, all of a sudden, they loved it. Arguably more than Test cricket itself.

How did Serbian sports fans, brought up on a diet of football and basketball their whole lives, feel about tennis before the emergence of Novak Djokovic?
They’d probably be happy to take it, or leave it.

But 24-time Grand Slam winner Djokovic gave them a sense of national pride and identity and with each new Grand Slam victory under his belt, more and more Serbians took a big interest in tennis.

But back to the Irish, Cheltenham and racing.

Basking in Cheltenham glory 

Irish racing has certainly made it easy for its fans to get plenty of satisfaction out of Cheltenham.

Since 2000, the Top Jockey prize (for the most wins by a jockey throughout the Festival) has only twice not gone to an Irish jockey with AP McCoy, Ruby Walsh and Barry Geraghty among the jockeys to have won it more than once. In 2021, Rachael Blackmore, who is Irish, was the first-ever female jockey to win the award.

Since 2010, the leading Trainer (no explanation needed) has been Irish on every single occasion, with that man Willie Mullins winning the last five, nine of the last 11 and only having his run broken in 2018 and 2019 by Gordon Elliott, an…Irishman.

Arkle, the three-time Gold Cup (the biggest race of the Cheltenham Festival) winner who famously enjoyed drinking Guinness twice a day (true story), was as Irish as the foamy, bitter, black stuff he was drinking.

Istabraq, another Cheltenham legend, was owned by JP McManus, trained by Aidan O’Brien and rode to Cheltenham success by County Tipperary born Charlie Swan.

The truth of the matter is Ireland rarely enjoys sporting success at the highest level in the biggest sports. Even their recently-brilliant Rugby Union team who went into the 2023 World Cup as the number 1 ranked team in the world and hot favourites, didn’t actually win it. Heck, they didn’t even make the semis. To take it a step further, they’ve never even made a semi-final in any of their 10 Rugby World Cup appearances.

So, it’s not rocket science that part of the reason the Irish love Cheltenham so much is they keep enjoying so much success in it. It also doesn’t do any harm that they keep on beating the English at their own game. Year after year.

There for the craic

But basking in Irish glory on the course and winning some chunky bets on horses with Irish connections only goes some way to explaining the love affair between a whole country located on the other side of the Irish Sea, to this sleepy little English town,

The Irish love a good time. Travelling, chatting, laughing, dancing, drinking, gambling, singing. If you’ve been lucky enough to go to the Festival over the years, you’ll know all of those things can be found at Cheltenham. In spades.

It helps to explain why so many Irish families, if they’re to have one expensive holiday a year, are happy to choose to say ‘nil’ to the Spanish sun or the famously fine French food, and ‘tá’, to Cheltenham.

Beers, cheers and tears – the ultimate day out

At the very start of my career in the online betting industry, I took a job at Betfair.

At the time, with their novel betting exchange concept, they were the betting industry’s new kids on the block. Some 20 years or so after New Kids on the Block had become the music industry’s, well…new kids on the block.

It didn’t take me long to realise this was a company somewhat obsessed with the Cheltenham Festival. Personally, I didn’t really get it.

Then, in 2007, I was sent by Betfair to Cheltenham to write an article for their brand-new blog about the whole experience.
And that’s when I got it.

I was lucky enough to be there in the very year that the legendary Kauto Star won his first Gold Cup, while future Gold Cup winner and long-term Kauto Star rival Denman won his first-ever Cheltenham Festival race, the Novices Chase, two days earlier.

Elsewhere, Nina Carberry became the first female to win a Cheltenham Festival race since 1983.

But aside from all the history-making on the course, there was plenty to savour off it.

Tens of thousands of racing-obsessed fans sipped pints of Guinness, munched on steak and kidney pies, talked up their fancies ahead of the next race and quite simply, were having the time of their lives.

When the great ‘Cheltenham roar’ echoed around the whole course as the leaders of the first race made their way up the infamously steep hill, it sent shivers down my spine.

Those racing-savvy, Cheltenham-going veterans weren’t the only ones having the time of their lives.

As I took the train back to London with a tear in my eye on Saturday morning, the only thought on my mind was when I’d have the chance to go back there myself.

All-in Global’s best Cheltenham Festival tips

No Cheltenham guide, preview or summary would be complete without a couple of betting tips. Remembering that one of the golden rules of successful betting is ‘less is more’, we’ll give you two, rather than a dozen tips. So here they are.

Teahupoo to win the Paddy Power Stayers Hurdle @ 6/5 (Thursday March 13)

Teahupoo, trained by the aforementioned Gordon Elliott and normally ridden by Jack Kennedy, won this race last year in brilliant fashion. So that’s the ‘been there, done it’ box ticked right there.

By also winning the Irish equivalent of the race shortly after at Punchestown, it became the first horse to complete the double since Anzum in 1999.

Of course, no horse can always have it all their own way and it found its match in Lossiemouth in its sole appearance of the season in the Hatton’s Grace at Fairyhouse in early December 2024.

But Teahupoo may have been a bit rusty for that one and will have been better for the run out.

That loss also explains why it’s the price that it is, as opposed to say 4/7, if it had won it. So, you’re benefiting by that defeat in the sense that you’re getting much bigger odds than it would have been, had it won.

All of which makes Teahupoo our Nap (racing term for the best bet of a Festival) for 2025.

Win Some Lose Some each-way for the Pertemps Network Final @ 7/1 (Thursday March 13)

‘Win some lose some’ is a very sensible philosophy to have ahead of the Cheltenham Festival if you’re considering a punt on it.

Unless you’re blindly backing favourites just because they’re, well, favourites, you’ll do well to pick three or four winners across the 28 races as a whole. And that’s only if you were betting on most of the races in the first place.

Yeah, no-one said it was easy.

But it’s not just a pragmatic attitude from a seasoned Cheltenham Festival punter.

It’s also the name of a fine horse who should give you a ‘good run for your money’ (another racing term to impress your mates down the pub with) in the Pertemps, which by coincidence, is on the Thursday, the same day as our Nap.

The JP McManus-owned six-year-old has already won four times from nine starts, so has a good strike rate to its name.

Its most recent win came in a qualifier for this very race at the Leopardstown Christmas Festival, where it jumped beautifully and had plenty left in the tank at the end, racing clear of its rivals after jumping the last in style, and proving that it has the stamina for longer races.

Something it was doing for the first time, given it was its first attempt over three miles.

As a bonus, the selection is as an each-way bet, giving you the chance (if you’re a novice when it comes to horse racing betting) to place your first-ever each-way bet, or pari gagnant-placé If you prefer, now that you know exactly what that means.

What’s in a name?

If you happen to own a racehorse in the UK and you don’t have a name for it yet, it pays to be aware that you can’t just decide on any old name.

The naming of racehorses is serious business, because, well, this is a serious business with horses potentially worth millions of pounds in prize money and breeding fees.

The list of dos and don’ts for naming horses is summed up in 13 different requirements before your horse officially carries that name. And even then, it still needs to be approved by the Jockey Club before it’s all signed off.

Some of those 13 are a bit dull, but here are the three we found most interesting.

For starters, your horse’s name can’t have more than 18 characters in it, including spaces and punctuation. One of the major reasons for that is that race commentators don’t want to spend half their time during a race just calling a prominent horse’s name. They’re there to commentate on the action, not win competitions for being able to correctly pronounce particularly long names.

Secondly, a horse’s name cannot have any commercial significance. So, deciding to call a horse Bet365, Starbucks or Mastercard may seem like a good idea at the time to plug your business, but the Jockey Club isn’t having it and will reject your request for that name immediately.

Lastly, you can name your horse after a person who has been dead for over 50 years.

But that’s not to say that you can’t name it after someone who is still alive, or someone who has been dead for less than 50 years.

So, if you wanted to name your horse Cristiano Ronaldo, all you’d have to do would be to contact CR7 himself and ask his written permission to do so. If you wanted to name your horse after the deceased (in 2012) Whitney Houston, for example, you’d have to ask her family if it was ok with them.

We’re here to help

If you’re a betting operator, affiliate site or any other form of website looking to boost your business on the back of the popularity of the Cheltenham Festival and hoping to increase sign-ups, betting activity or just general engagement, we’re here to help.

Of course, that’s not limited to the Cheltenham Festival. It could be any other major sporting event, pretty much any event, or any ongoing project, for that matter.

We have a huge stable of content writers, translators specialising in localisation and even betting tipsters, if that’s what you need. Whatever it is, we’ll provide it for you.

Whatever your content needs are, related to sports, betting or otherwise, get in touch with our team at sales@all-in.global.

So far in this article, we’ve emphasised the importance of localising terms that are specific to horse racing, attempted to decipher the origins of the great love affair between Ireland and the Festival, provided a brief account of this writer’s experience of the Festival, given you the lowdown on the surprisingly strict and complex process of naming racehorses and supplied you with our two top betting tips ahead of Cheltenham.

And now, we’ll round things off with some figures, some of which are barely believable, about the Festival over the years. Whether you’re just a fan of trivia, have become increasingly intrigued by Cheltenham or want to impress your mates when it gets under way, here’s Cheltenham in numbers.

Cheltenham in numbers

· Over 250 different on-course bookmakers, known as ‘rails bookies’, will be present for each of the four days of the Festival.

· On average, 65,0000 racegoers attend the Festival each day.

· The Festival’s biggest race, the Gold Cup, has total prize money of £625,000 for the race as a whole and £351,688 just for the winner.

· Over the course of the Festival*, the Cheltenham crowds ate 45,000 bread rolls, 9 tons of potatoes, 5 tons of fresh and smoked salmon and drank 8,000+ gallons of tea and coffee.

· They also drank over 265,000 pints of Guinness, each one priced at an eyebrow-raising £7.50 Sterling/€8.90 a pint. **

· The Festival is also attended by 1000 accredited journalists, while regular racegoers help occupy 24 private boxes and 15 restaurants.

· The jockey on board Kauto Star, when it won that 2017 Gold Cup, was no stranger to Cheltenham success. Ruby Walsh’s 59 Festival wins in total is an all-time record for a jockey, he was the Festival’s leading jockey on seven occasions with seven winners on two of those occasions, and the first jockey to partner four winners in one day at the Festival.

· Kauto Star is the only horse in history to win a Gold Cup (2007), lose his crown (2008) to the aforementioned Denman, and then regain it (2009).

· Ahead of the 2022 edition, giant Irish bookmakers Paddy Power estimated that close to £1 billion would be wagered on the Festival, with three and a half million bets placed on the Gold Cup alone.

· David Stevens, a senior figure at Corals ahead of the 2019 Festival summed it up best when he said of it: “There is no other meeting like it. Of the top 40 betting races last year, 25 were Cheltenham Festival races, which says it all. It’s the meeting that gets the juices flowing for punters like no other. Bookmakers look forward to it just as much as the punters do.”

*Figures relate to the 2015 Cheltenham Festival.
** Figures relate to the 2023 Festival.