Since his first winner in 2002, Barry Geraghty has had at least one victory at the Cheltenham Festival in every year except 2017. The Irish jockey is +600 with Bovada to be the leading rider at the Gloucestershire jumps carnival next week.

Only Paul Townend and Davy Russell are ahead of Geraghty in the betting for top jockey at Cheltenham. The majority of their rides will respectively be for Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott, who dominate the betting for the leading trainer at the 2020 Festival.

With 38 victories, Geraghty has the second-biggest total of Cheltenham Festival winners after Ruby Walsh. He has had two winners or more at 12 Festivals since 2002 and his average number of winners per year over that spell is exactly two. In two years (2003 and 2012) he rode five winners and he was the leading jockey. Geraghty has won each of the four biggest races at Cheltenham and the Grand National at Aintree. His wins in the four main championship races are:

Champion Hurdle – three wins (2009, 2014 and 2018)
Champion Chase – five wins (2003, 2005, 2010, 2012 and 2013)
Stayers' Hurdle – two wins (2004 and 2014)
Gold Cup – one win (2013)

With 11 wins at a return rate of 28.9% in the Festival races that matter most, Geraghty rightly holds the reputation as a jockey to be trusted in the big ones. Only nine of his winning rides have come in handicaps and he rode the winner of the bumper in 2007. His preferred race types at Cheltenham are chases (21 wins) and hurdles (16 wins).

The Champion Chase is run on the Wednesday and Geraghty's five wins in that race account for half his total of 10 wins on the second day of the Festival since the current schedule was introduced in 2005. He is the regular jockey for Defi Du Seuil, which is currently the second favourite for the Champion Chase at a best price of +225.

Based on the latest odds, Geraghty's other leading chance for a winner is aboard Champ in the RSA Novices' Chase. Geraghty regularly rides horses owned by JP McManus, who on offer at -250 to finish the 2020 Cheltenham Festival with more winners than any other trainer.

Geraghty has never been the champion jumps jockey in Britain. He has split his time between Ireland and the UK and was the Irish jumps champion in 1999/2000 and 2003/04. Geraghty has been riding in the eras of AP McCoy and Richard Johnson, who have dominated the jockey's championship over the last 25 years.

Geraghty's success has been more based on quality rather than quantity. He is unlikely to be the 2020 Cheltenham Festival leading jockey, but he will almost certainly win one of the Grade 1 races. Champ could be the horse to deliver that big win.