Cheltenham Festival: top punting pointers for the pinnacle of jump racing

For many jumps owners, trainers, jockeys and even fans, the Cheltenham Festival simply is the jumps season. With a storied history and set in a bowl in the Cotswolds that makes for the most natural of amphitheatres, the festival’s pull is wide-ranging and hard to resist.

Plenty of horses will be trained with just one aim in mind and that’s to get to Cheltenham in March with the best possible chance. It’s the Olympics of the sport and every runner there will be primed and in peak condition to perform at their best for that one day of the year.

The build-up to the festival is all part of it. Preview nights featuring debates about whether this horse will get up the hill or whether that one jumps well enough are manifold and, by the time the traditional curtain-raiser, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, comes around the crowd is in hysteria before a huge roar sends them off for the most anticipated four days of the year.