Cheltenham Festival
The Role Of William Hill Super Saturday In The Build-Up To The Cheltenham Festival
Last weekend we kicked off all things Cheltenham at the iconic Newbury Racecourse with Super Saturday – a key feature in the racing calendar proudly sponsored by William Hill.
With Spring Festivals representing one of the most competitive and commercially important periods of the year, Super Saturday plays a crucial role in building brand visibility and customer engagement at exactly the right moment.
We spoke to our very own Mark Walton, Racing Sponsorship Manager, to explore why Super Saturday plays such a crucial role in our Cheltenham build-up – and to hear his standout moments from the day.
This was our second year sponsoring Super Saturday. Can you tell us a bit about why William Hill sponsors these races?
This fixture represents a great opportunity for William Hill to be part of one of the biggest Saturdays in the lead up to the Cheltenham Festival. It’s five weeks out from those fabulous four days in March and we often see leading contenders take in this meeting as their final stepping stone before Cheltenham.
If you look at the list of horses who have won on this day before going on to Cheltenham Gold Cup success, you have the likes of Native River, Coneygree, Kauto Star and Denman – it’s an incredible roll of honour for the William Hill Denman Chase.
It’s the same in the William Hill Game Spirit Chase with Altior, Master Minded, Azertyuiop and Viking Flagship all going on to land the Queen Mother Champion Chase after winning at Newbury.
How does this sponsorship align with our wider commercial strategy?
It’s a great shop window at a crucial time of year and maintains our strong brand visibility and presence compared to top-tier competitors in the lead-up to the commercially important Spring Festivals – some of the year’s biggest moments for activating punters across sports and gaming to drive revenues for the year.
Newbury is an ITV host venue, providing strong brand awareness, especially on TV, going into Cheltenham. That helps build consideration and affinity with our offers, priming our target high- and core-value audiences ahead of the Cheltenham Festival, where competition to win a greater share of customers’ betting spend is at its fiercest.
Sponsorship ensures stature, credibility and trust are cemented in the minds of customers when they come to make their (often unconscious) choice of bookie, and Super Saturday delivers in spades especially for racing-led customers, as a respected race day steeped in history and associated with National Hunt legends.
How did the races go on Saturday, and did the results change any of your predictions for Cheltenham?
We saw some great winners on the day. Lulamba was a clear winner of the William Hill Game Spirit Chase and at 5/4 looks the one to beat in the Arkle. Haiti Couleurs remains a double figure price for the Cheltenham Gold Cup after winning the William Hill Denman Chase.
I think he stamped his class on the field at Newbury and could mix it in the Gold Cup. He stays really well which should give him a chance, but the fact he’s an Irish Grand National and a Welsh Grand National winner, I’m not surprised to see our traders trim him into 10/1 from 14/1 for Grand National.
Tutti Quanti, the winner of the William Hill Hurdle would need to be supplemented for the Champion Hurdle, but the way he won on testing ground suggests he could be of interest at 16/1 should we get heavy ground at the Cheltenham Festival.
Looking away from the winners and aiming for something less obvious – Favoir did what Favoir does and would be on the right kind of handicap mark if he was to take aim at the William Hill County Hurdle again. He is an 11-year-old now though, so perhaps it might be worth looking at the other end of the spectrum and seeing where Un Sens A La Vie ends up next.
What was the feature race of the day?
The feature race is synonymous with the sponsor, being known simply as the William Hill Hurdle. This is great for media references, articles and social media as it’s known purely by our name.
Past winners include My Tent Or Yours, who hit the crossbar in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham the same year before grabbing Grade 1 honours the following year, Kalashnikov and Zarkandar were both Grade 1 winners following their Newbury Super Saturday wins too.
As it’s such a competitive handicap hurdle, it also ties in brilliantly with our sponsorship of the William Hill County Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival; Favoir, for example, had run in two renewals of the William Hill Hurdle before landing County Hurdle in 2023.
It’s a fixture that’s very much a part of the narrative going into Cheltenham and tactically it’s in a great place for us to land key messages like non-runner money back and Each Way Extra to prime our audience enroute to Cheltenham.
What are you most excited about for Cheltenham this year?
It has to be Gold Cup Day. It’s the big finale to the Festival and with our sponsorship of the William Hill County Hurdle we’re really involved in the biggest day of the week.
We’ve seen some great horses win our sponsored race, it’s always a great betting heat and we get to do some really exciting activation on the day, with a preview before racing with Sir AP McCoy and Barry Geraghty and a great chance to engage our customers with an on-course activation space, which is always great fun.
I also love the storylines you get at Cheltenham and can’t wait to see what we get this year. You get the redemption stories, the comebacks, the ones that move you.
What’s your favourite Cheltenham story from over the years?
Sprinter Sacre roaring back to form in 2016 is one that immediately springs to mind, but Kauto Star was always my favourite horse and his battles with Denman were absolutely electric.
Kauto was king in 2007 and when Denman beat him in 2008 it looked like the crown had well and truly been passed. The commentary suggested as much, with Richard Hoiles’ incredible call ringing in a new era: “Relentless, remorseless, he’s pounded Kauto Star into submission.”
Denman had won the Gold Cup, and history dictates that was that for Kauto Star’s Gold Cup legacy. In the then 85-year history of the race, no horse had ever regained steeplechasing’s blue-riband title.
Fast forward 12 months and as they head into the closing stages, we get the rematch. Denman tries to go with his stablemate as they round the turn for home but in a matter of strides Kauto Star kicks clear. History made!
The first horse (and still the only horse in history) to regain the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The Cheltenham Festival gives us these legendary moments and stirs the emotions like nothing else in racing. I can’t wait to see who writes their name into history in 2026.
