Last updated 8 September 2026. Course details verified against Chepstow Racecourse and published race records.
Chepstow is the home of Welsh racing. It stages the biggest race in the country, it opens the jumps season with a three-day festival, and for DragonBet it is genuinely local ground.
The course
| Chepstow | |
|---|---|
| Location | Piercefield Park, just north of Chepstow, Monmouthshire |
| Opened | 6 August 1926 |
| Course | Left-handed, undulating oval of just under 2 miles |
| Finishing straight | Around 5 furlongs |
| Fences | 11 on a full jump circuit |
| Codes | Flat in summer, National Hunt in winter |
| Fixtures | 29 a year |
| Operator | Arena Racing Company |
| On TV | Sky Sports Racing |
The undulations are the thing to know. Chepstow rides stiffer than the bare distance suggests, particularly in winter when the ground goes, and a horse that stays well is worth more here than raw speed.
DragonBet Welsh Racing Festival, 9 to 11 October 2026
Three days that open the Welsh jumps season, and the meeting DragonBet sponsors.
| Day | Feature race |
|---|---|
| Thursday 8 October | Welsh Racing Awards |
| Friday 9 October | Persian War Novices’ Hurdle (Grade 2) |
| Saturday 10 October | Wasdell Group Silver Trophy, worth £75,000 |
| Sunday 11 October | DragonBet Welsh Champion Hurdle |
Three-day tickets start from £35. The Sunday is the one to circle: the Welsh Champion Hurdle was run at Ffos Las from 2010 to 2024 and came back to Chepstow in 2025, having first been staged here in 1969. Saturday’s Silver Trophy is worth £75,000 and has been won by Don’t Push It and Ballyoptic.
The Welsh Grand National
Chepstow’s biggest day comes on 27 December. The Welsh Grand National is run over 3 miles 6½ furlongs and 23 fences, and it is one of the stiffest stamina tests in the calendar: deep winter ground, big weights, more than 10,000 through the gates.
Welsh-trained winners are rare enough to be an event in themselves. Potters Corner ended a wait of over half a century for Christian Williams in 2019, and Iwilldoit followed in 2021. The full winners list back to 1949 is on its own page.
A bookmaker’s home fixture
James Lovell has stood in the Chepstow ring most of his working life, and his family before him.
He has also made a point about the racing here that is worth a punter’s attention: Chepstow favourites are hard to beat. On one card he wrote up, four favourites won and second favourites took the other three races. Short prices in Monmouthshire tend to be short for a reason.
Local knowledge cuts both ways. Trainers based near the course, Deborah Faulkner among them, have a habit of knowing exactly when their own are ready, and the ring finds out the hard way.
The Chepstow year
Two seasons, two completely different courses. Summer flat racing at Chepstow is quick, fair ground on a big galloping oval. Winter jumps is a slog, and that is the version the track is known for.
The calendar has three fixed points. October brings the Welsh Racing Festival and the jumps season opener. December brings the Finale Juvenile Hurdle and then the Welsh Grand National on the 27th. Between them, 29 fixtures a year keep the place ticking over.
Why the ring respects local form
Small yards near a track know their own horses better than the market does, and Chepstow has a few. David Lovell made the point about Deborah Faulkner, who trains close to the course: they “certainly know the time of day when it comes to backing their own.”
He found out what that costs. On a Saturday at Chepstow the first race went to a 33/1 shot, which is normally a bookmaker’s dream:
“With all the other bookies cheering, I was nearly weeping having laid £100 each-way at 40/1. It’s never good having to pay out £5,200 over a ‘result,’ especially when it’s in the first.“
Two things a punter can take from that. Prices on course move on local money, so an early price at a Welsh track is worth more than it looks. And a 33/1 winner in the opener does not mean the favourites will not grind through the rest of the card, because at Chepstow they usually do.
Getting there
The course sits a few miles from the Severn Bridge, which makes it one of the easiest Welsh tracks to reach from Bristol and the west of England. Chepstow railway station is about a mile and a half away.
Betting at Chepstow
Stamina and the state of the ground decide more races here than anywhere else in Wales, and the big field handicaps in December are where each-way terms earn their keep. Odds for every Chepstow card are on the DragonBet horse racing page, and any term here you have not met is in the betting glossary.
Our other Welsh course guides: Ffos Las and Bangor-on-Dee.
18+. Please gamble responsibly. Free confidential support is available from GambleAware on 0808 8020 133, and you can self-exclude from all UK-licensed online operators through GAMSTOP.
Sources: Chepstow Racecourse for festival dates, feature races and ticket prices; course specification and race records per published racing sources. First-hand quotes from DragonBet’s own From The Dragon’s Mouth columns. Correct as of 8 September 2026.
