Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase

As the name suggests, the Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase is run over 3 miles 6 furlongs and 67 yards on the Cross Country Course at Cheltenham. The race is open to horses aged five years and upwards, who must negotiate a twisting, turning course and thirty-two idiosyncratic obstacles, including banks, rails and ditches. The Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase is currently scheduled as the fourth race on the second day of the Cheltenham Festival, just prior to the Queen Mother Champion Chase. It is, in fact, a fairly recent addition to the Festival programme, having been added when a fourth day was added in 2005.

The Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase was originally a handicap but, in 2016, the conditions were adjusted to make the race a conditions event run off level weights. Co. Limerick handler Enda Bolger, himself a fine amateur rider, is the joint most successful trainer in the short history of the Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase, saddling Spot The Difference (2005), Heads On The Ground (2007) and Garde Champetre (2008, 2009) and Josies Orders (2016) for five wins (the same as Gordon Elliot who most recently won with Delta Work in 2022 and 2023. Keith Donoghue has burst into the forefront as the most successul jockey, coming out on top with Tiger Roll three times, as well as wins on Delta Work in 2023 and Stumptown in 2025.