Cheltenham Festival tips: Ladbrokes' picks for 2025 day one

The Willie Mullins-trained Kopek Des Bordes is the odds-on favourite to win the first race at Cheltenham this year, and our team of experts is also backing him to emerge victorious.

So, for an each-way pick in the event's opener, we're going with Romeo Coolio, who is priced at 8/1 as the joint-third favourite.

Gordon Elliott is gaining ground in the race to become the festival's top trainer (in the market without Willie Mullins), and Romeo Coolio shocking the world to place in the Novices' Hurdle would definitely help his case.

We're opting not go with another of the favourites for Cheltenham's second race, with L'Eau Du Sud our pick for the Arkle Challenge Trophy.

A trap some bettors fall into around Cheltenham is trying to be too cute and different with their bets, but sometimes it's sensible to go for one of the front-runners, and that's what we're doing here.

The Mullins' trained Majborough is the favourite in this one, and with good reason, but we don't think there's enough him and L'Eau Du Sud, who is priced far more favourably at 5/1 compared to 4/9.

The competition for the Ultima Handicap Chase is wide open, with the two favourites for Cheltenham's third race priced at 8/1.

The Changing Man is one of the two favourites at that price point, and those odds are long enough for us to believe it could be worth taking a punt on Joe Tizzard-trained horse.

There's no clear-cut favourite for this race, as the odds from the bookies suggest, so going with the 8/1 favourite makes sense here.

At the half-way stage of day one is the Mares' Hurdle, and we're expecting pure domination from Willie Mullins.

Lossiemouth is the favourite, and we expect her to win, but Jade De Grugy represents an interesting each-way pick here.

She's 6/1 to win the race, behind the odds-on favourite, so represents decent value to place behind another of his trainer's horses here.

The feeling amongst many racing fans and pundits is that the Champion Hurdle is going to be won by Constitution Hill, but we're going with a slight outside pick of Brighterdaysahead for this one.

Constitution Hill has actually somewhat flattered to decieve this season. The fact that he's not in the best of form could leave the door open for Gordon Elliot's Brighterdaysahead to upset the bookies and pull of a surprise win.

The penultimate race of the day is the Handicap Hurdle, and despite being the favourite, we're going with Stencil to pull off the win.

Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm's horse has been priced at 10/3 to win the race, which represents pretty good value and could be worth a punt to win the entire thing.

Day one's main event is the National Hunt, with our team of experts picking Transmission for the win. The price is good at 4/1, an assumed probability of only 2% less than the favourite, the price looks good.

For those interested, Ladbrokes has an 'everything you need to know' piece ahead of Cheltenham, as well as a beginner's guide to betting at the festival.

View the latest Cheltenham Festival odds

All odds and markets are correct as of the date of publication.