Supreme Novices Hurdle

The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle is the traditional Cheltenham curtain-raiser, and a huge cheer from the crowd goes up when the horses are let go for this one. It’s a Grade One race open to horses aged four and older and is run on the old course over a distance of 2 miles, 110 yards. The race is for novice hurdlers and there are a total of eight obstacles to be jumped.

The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle was first ran in 1946 and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Two of the most famous names to appear on the previous winners’ list are Flyingbolt (1964) and Golden Cygnet (1978). The 2001 Cheltenham Festival was cancelled due to foot and mouth disease so there was no Supreme Novices’ race that year.

Good recent form can be seen as positive here and no less than 12 of the last 14 winners had won last-time-out. Fitness is also essential and all of the last ten winners had raced within 45 days of the festival. 30 of the last 35 winners were aged five or six; although it must be noted that the majority of the field is usually made up by horses in that age bracket.

Irish trained horses have an excellent record in this contest and have won seven times since the turn of this century; most recently with Go Native trained by Noel Meade in 2009. The last domestically trained winner was Paul Nicholls’ Noland in 2006.

Quite often, this race will have a short priced favourite (usually Irish trained) but the layers have came out on top in recent times and the last favourite to win was Brave Inca back in 2004. Last year’s winner Go Native was priced at 12/1 with the bookmakers but went off at 17/1 on Betfair.

The 2010 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle will take place at Cheltenham on Tuesday, 16th March and has a total prize-fund of £100,000.