Christmas is here for horse racing fans with the biggest event of the calendar, the 2025 Cheltenham Festival taking centre stage from March 11 to March 14.

The big names such as Galopin Des Champs, Jonbon and Constitutional Hill all return to the historic racecourse to wow the crowds once again with punters looking to have another memorable Cheltenham moment.

How to claim your Free Bets and daily special offers from NetBet

NetBet are releasing an enhanced version of their already brilliant welcome offer, which will see you rewarded with a £10 Free Bet and 25 Free Spins when you bet £10 on any sport.

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When you bet £20 a day on the Cheltenham races which are live on ITV, 10 Free Spins will be credited to your account.

NetBet will have special sports betting offers each day of the Cheltenham Festival for customers.

On Day 1, if you bet £10 on the first race at odds of 1/1 or more, you’ll receive a £5 Free Bet.

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Finally, the Day 4 promo sees you rewarded with a £10 Free Bet if your horse doesn’t win when you place a £10 bet on the first race.

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When does Cheltenham begin?

The races get underway each day at 1:30pm with the Festival starting Tuesday 11th March and ending Friday 14th March. The main race, the Cheltenham Gold Cup is on Friday at 4:00pm

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Greenland’s prime minister has responded after US President Donald Trump declared that America would take it over ‘one way or the other’.

Trump has been talking about taking over Greenland for a while, having claimed that the US will ‘need it for national security’, saying he was ‘talking about protecting the free world’ when he spoke of occupying the world’s largest island.

Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, which has insisted that they will not be selling it to the Americans, and while there is an independence movement in the territory they are not rushing to become the next American state.

In his address to Congress yesterday (4 March), Trump once again spoke of his desire to take over Greenland, saying: “We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.

“We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.”

Trump said his government was ‘working with everybody involved to try to get’ Greenland, and despite the lack of desire from Greenland or Denmark for his ideas he made it clear he thinks he will succeed eventually.

Donald Trump wants Greenland, Greenland doesn’t want Donald Trump (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“We need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” he told Congress.

Responding to Trump’s ominous declaration that the US was ‘going to get’ Greenland ‘one way or the other‘, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede released a statement declaring that ‘Kalaallit Nunaat is ours’ (Kalaallit Nunaat is the Greenlanders’ name for their country).

He said: “We don’t want to be Americans, nor Danes; We are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede has made it clear Greenland doesn’t want to be part of the US (Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland.”

Trump’s notion of the US taking over Greenland would seem to run very much contrary to the desire of the 56,000 people who actually live there, which would seem to be a massive obstacle to his plans to take it over.

Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said he didn’t think that Greenland wanted to become independent just to end up being ‘an integrated part of America’.

Donald Trump is considering ignoring an important aspect of the NATO alliance for certain countries, according to reports from the US.

NBC News reports that Trump is ‘considering’ changing the US policy on engagement with other NATO countries so it might not defend an allied country which is attacked and isn’t spending enough money on defence.

NATO countries had pledged to be spending at least two percent of GDP on defence spending by 2024 and some nations lagging behind on this has been a consistent point of complaint for Donald Trump.

NBC reports that a trio of current and former US officials and a congressional official said Trump had discussed the possibility of changing the US approach towards their allies, and that the US might give priority on military exercises that are meeting the spending threshold.

In NATO, there is something known as ‘Article 5’, which is where a country that is attacked can claim that an attack on them is an attack on all other members which would call them into a war.

Donald Trump has made a lot of noises about NATO (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

Article 5 has only ever been invoked once, and that’s by the US itself in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks.

If the US was to pick and choose not to defend certain countries which form part of NATO, then it would rather blow a whole in the principles of Article 5 and the idea that an invaded member of the alliance could count on the support of others, particularly if the country that will not help is the US.

A National Security Council official said in a statement: “President Trump is committed to NATO and Article V.”

On the other hand, the number of countries which are still lagging behind the two percent target is not extensive, and most of them aren’t in much danger of being invaded at the moment.

In Europe, the NATO countries which aren’t yet at the spending target are Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Slovakia and Croatia.

Not coming to the aid of a NATO ally would blow a hole in the alliance (NurPhoto / Contributor/Getty)

The countries which border an aggressive and expansionist nation, like Russia, are all spending above the target, some of them quite significantly.

So, while the consequences of the US not coming to the aid of a NATO ally would undermine one of the foundational principles of the alliance, any such change that Trump is currently ‘considering’ may not have much of an actual impact in the world.

Meanwhile, with Trump’s administration pausing military aid for Ukraine and withdrawing intelligence support many European nations have been exploring options for alliances that would not rely on the US any more.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has talked about building a ‘coalition of the willing’ to help Ukraine, and UK officials have said that around 20 countries have expressed an interest in contributing.

Over in France, Emmanuel Macron has said that his nation’s nuclear deterrent, which operates independent from the US, could be used to protect the entire continent of Europe.

US President Donald Trump has issued a chilling warning about what he considers to be the ‘greatest threat to humanity’.

The businessman said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday (9 March) that we shouldn’t be prioritising climate change as ‘the biggest existential threat’.

He told the broadcaster that ‘the level of destruction’ of nuclear weapons ‘is beyond anything you can imagine’.

Trump, 78, who is in charge of America’s 5,044 warheads, which is only second to Russia’s 5,500, said: “We spend a lot of money of nuclear weapons – the level of destruction is beyond anything you can imagine.

“It’s just bad that you have to spend all this money on something that if it’s used, it’s probably the end of the world.”

The Republican insisted that he disagreed with former President Joe Biden on his alleged prioritisation of global warming being a bigger concern.

Donald Trump has issued a chilling warning about the reality of nuclear war (OLIVER CONTRERAS/AFP via Getty Images)

“The greatest is sitting on shelves in various countries called ‘nuclear weapons’ that are big monsters that can blow your heads off for miles and miles and miles,” he added.

Trump also said that he sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, with the hopes of negotiating a new deal with Tehran to restrain its advancing nuclear programme.

He wants to replace their plan with the one he withdrew America from during his first term in office.

“I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing,’” Trump said.

“I would rather negotiate a deal. I’m not sure that everybody agrees with me, but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily.

Trump says we need to prioritise nuclear war as the biggest threat to humanity (Getty Stock Images)

“But the time is happening now. The time is coming up. Something’s going to happen one way or the other.

“I hope you’re going to negotiate because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran and I think they want to get that letter.

“The other alternative is we have to do something because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”

This comes after Trump said last month that he wants to talk to China and Russia about de-escalating their nuclear weapons programme.

“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” he explained.

“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.

“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive.”