The 2024 horse racing schedule began on Tuesday, January 2 in the United Kingdom with a pair of fixtures—one apiece of jump and flat courses—kicking off what should be an exciting year for the sport. It’ll be a few more months still before the season begins in earnest with the Cheltenham Festival sparking a run of Grade 1 fixtures in the spring, but there are plenty of races to tide a horse racing fanatic over until then.
Here are some of the biggest events that await us in 2024, with storylines to watch as the action ramps up.
Cheltenham Festival
This four day celebration in Gloucestershire gets the racing season started in early March, but it doesn’t take long for the action to get going: with the second-largest amount of prize money of any event in the country, there will be plenty at stake for the jockeys in Southwest England.
With exactly ten weeks to go before Cheltenham begins on March 12, we already have a look at the odds for major events such as the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and Stayers’ Hurdle.
French gelding Galopin Des Champs won the Gold Cup last March, and right now, he’s the favorite to double down on his dominance, listed with odds as high as 11/10 at various sites offering free bets in the UK. Horse racing is a fickle sport to bet on ahead of time, especially when you consider the injuries that can prevent a prized racer from taking part in the hours leading up to the event. What look like long odds now could end up being a steal if some of the top racehorses are forced out of action, but that isn’t something you can prepare for ahead of time: you’re at the mercy of Lady Luck.
Energumene, who won the past two Queen Mother Champion Chases, likely won’t have a chance at a three-peat, as the nine-year-old gelding suffered a hind leg injury in October that seems likely to derail his season.
The Grand National and a Busy Spring
The racing season continues its hot start with the Grand National, held every April and arguably the most popular horse race in the world. With as many as 600 million people from 140 countries tuning in every year, The Grand National dwarfs the Kentucky Derby in popularity, making it one of the biggest sporting events in the world.
With another weekend of festivities set to begin on April 11 at Aintree this year, the nearly seven kilometer steeplechase that makes up the main event is the most valuable jump race in all of Europe, despite only being a Grade 3 stakes.
Corach Rambler won the event in 2023, an interesting affair that saw animal rights activists break onto the field in an attempt to stop the proceedings, and news broke earlier today that the gelding had been entered in the Gold Cup, perhaps a final tuneup ahead of a title defense in April.
The 2,000 Guineas and 1,000 Guineas stakes will take place on May 4 and May 5 this year, the first of the five British Classics run in 2024.
Kicking Off the Summer Months
While June may not have the financial power that the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National do, the start of the summer season still boasts two of the most prestigious races in the history of the sport.
First is the Epsom Derby Festival, which begins on May 31 this year with the ever-trendy Ladies Day which features the third of the Classic races, The Epsom Oaks, which stars three-year-old fillies. The main event at Epsom takes place the next day, the first Saturday in June. The fourth of the Classic races, the Derby may not take place during the actual summertime, but it still marks the cultural beginning of everyone’s favorite season.
First run in 1779 and 1780, respectively, these are two of the oldest of the Classic races, kicking off a summer season loaded with history. Races began at Royal Ascot—which runs from June 18 to June 22 this year—nearly a century earlier in 1711, and it’s the most valuable of all the English Stakes with as much as 7.3 million pounds in prize money on the table. While it may not be considered one of the classics, it’s hard to find a race steeped in more history than the proceedings at Ascot are.
Last but not least are the St Leger stakes, first run in 1776 as the oldest of the classics, bringing the traditional racing season to a close on October 12 this year.
