RACE HISTORY

The Champion Hurdle is a Grade 1 National Hunt hurdle race in Great Britain which is open to horses aged four years or older. It is run on the Old Course at Cheltenham over a distance of about 2 miles and ½ furlong (2 miles and 87 yards, or 3,298 metres), and during its running there are eight hurdles to be jumped. The race is the last leg of the Triple Crown of Hurdling and is scheduled to take place each year on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival in March.

As its title suggests, the Champion Hurdle is the most prestigious hurdling event in the National Hunt calendar. Its list of winners features many of the most highly acclaimed hurdlers in the sport’s history, and several of these, such as National Spirit, Istabraq, Hatton’s Grace, Persian War and Lanzarote, have had races named in their honour.

As part of a sponsorship agreement with the online gambling operator Unibet, the race is now known as the Unibet Champion Hurdle.

The first Champion Hurdle was run in 1927, and its inaugural winner, Blaris, was awarded prize money of £365. In its second year the event was won by Brown Jack, who subsequently became a prolific winner of long-distance flat races. The Champion Hurdle was abandoned in 1931 due to persistent frost, and in 1932 it was contested by just three horses – the smallest field in its history. The race was cancelled twice during World War II, in 1943 and 1944.

The 1947 renewal paved the way for a golden era in the Champion Hurdle with just 3 winners until 1955 – National Spirit, Hatton’s Grace and Sir Ken, all of them etched into the list of greatest ever hurdlers. Even though it was postponed twice because of winter snows, taking place in mid-April, it proved most popular with a record attendance at that time of 30,000 racing fans. The winner National Spirit became the second horse to retain the hurdling crown while the runner-up to him, a bay horse called Le Paillon trained by Alec Head‘s father, went on to race on the flat and won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe the same year.

As National Spirit was winning his second Champion Hurdle, the horse down the field, Hatton’s Grace, trained by one of the most important figures in horse racing Vincent O’Brien, was about to make history and improved for the next seasons to become the first hat-trick winner of the race. The achievement of Hatton’s Grace was soon to be matched by Sir Ken, who recorded three successive victories in the 1950s. Before the second of these Sir Ken was given a starting price of 2/5 (a £5 bet would have won £2). He is the shortest-priced horse to have won the race.

The 1970s produced another golden era of hurdling with the third Champion Hurdle triple winner Persian War and the exploits of double champions in Night Nurse, Monksfield, Bula and Comedy of Errors, who was the first horse to win two non-consecutive titles. The Racing Post declared the 1977 running to be the “strongest of fields ever assembled”, with Night Nurse beating two other subsequent dual Champion Hurdle winners in Sea Pigeon and Monksfield.

The 1984 winner, Dawn Run, became the second mare to win the Champion Hurdle. In the same year she also won the Irish and French versions of the event, and two seasons later she won the most prestigious chase in National Hunt racing, the Cheltenham Gold Cup. She remains the only horse to have completed the Champion Hurdle-Gold Cup double. From 1985 to 1987 the Champion Hurdle was dominated by See You Then, who became the event’s fourth three-time winner. The sixth and most recent mare to win the race was Honeysuckle, the winner of the 2021 and 2022 renewals.

The last triple winner of the Champion Hurdle was Istabraq, whose successes came in 1998, 1999 and 2000. In the early weeks of 2001 he was the odds-on favourite to win the race again, for an unprecedented fourth time. However, this opportunity was lost as the entire Cheltenham Festival was cancelled that year because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Istabraq returned for the 2002 running, but on this occasion he failed to complete the race, and he was retired thereafter.

Commercial sponsorship of the Champion Hurdle began in 1978, and it was initially backed by Waterford Crystal. The Smurfit (now known as the Smurfit Kappa Group), began supporting the race in 1991 and from 2010 to 2017 was sponsored by StanJames.com. Stan James’s parent company Unibet became the title sponsor from the 2018 running. The race is the final leg of the Road to Cheltenham, a series of high-class hurdles races consisting of the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, the International Hurdle and the Champion Hurdle Trial.

The Champion Hurdle has been continually run on a Tuesday since 1980. The 1927 race was run on a Wednesday, followed by a Thursday in 1928 and then Tuesday from 1929 to 1939. The race moved to Wednesday for 1940 and 1941 followed by rare Saturday runnings in 1942 and 1945. Tuesday became the established day for the Champion Hurdle from 1946 to 1960, with the exception of the postponed races in 1947 (Saturday) and 1955 (Wednesday). From 1961 to 1979 the race was always run on a Wednesday, except in 1964 when it took place on Friday for the only time in its history.

In 2023 Zanahiyr became the first horse to be disqualified. After finishing third in the 2022 running ahead of Saint Roi, he was disqualified and placed last by a BHA tribunal in early 2023 after a banned substance was discovered in a sample taken on race day. Saint Roi was subsequently awarded third place and all other runners were promoted by one place.

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FACTS, STATS AND TRENDS

Many reading this have been following my work on racing for 15 years or more. They will most certainly tell you that I work with trends, stats and “facts” in my search for winners.

Below you have individual sections dedicated to the primary factors that, in my opinion, determine the winner of a horse race….be it NH or flat racing. I have also put together a table comprising all of those factors in one place, for those that prefer tables to work with.

OFFICIAL RATINGS

The official Ratings are usually applied to novice events and handicaps when looking for winners of Festival races. Races such as the Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup etc usually go to the right horses and in the Champion Hurdle right now, it’ll be surreal if anything gets close to the official figure held by CONSTITUTION HILL. 

The chances of us having more than one hurdler around that could have given NIGHT NURSE a race are close to zero.

INTERESTING

I guess it gives you some idea as to just how good CONSTITUTION HILL is, when you think that it was way back in 1971 that we last saw the winner of a Supreme hurdle step up and win a Champion hurdle the season after. That old superstar was BULA and I’m old enough to remember him!

BULA went on to win the Champion Hurdle in back-to-back seasons, and I suspect we’ll see CONSTITUTION HILL keeping pace with him on that score, too.

It is currently 20/1 bar three and the current third favourite, STATE MAN, got closest to CONSTITUTION HILL in 2023 (beaten nine lengths), his first and only defeat over hurdles. 

The second favourite right now is IMPAIRE ET PASSE (6/1), and he looks more of a staying type to me. He is unbeaten in four races over hurdles and has an official rating of 157. That puts him fully 20lb behind CONSTITUTION HILL.

Is the 1/2 pure gold then?

STATS & TRENDS

NEGATIVE

🏇 – IGNORE HORSES YOUNGER THAN 6, OR OLDER THAN 9 

🏇 – ONLY TWO OF THE LAST 25 WINNERS HAD NOT RACED AT THE FESTIVAL BEFORE

🏇 – ONLY TWO OF THE LAST 13 TIMES HAD RACED MORE THAN 12 TIMES OVER HURDLES

🏇 – ONLY 1 OF THE LAST 14 WINNERS RETURNED 10/1 OR BIGGER

Winning Trainer/Jockey 

• 2014 – HARRINGTON/GERAGHTY
• 2015 – WILLIE MULLINS / RUBY WALSH
• 2016 – WILLIE MULLINS / RUBY WALSH
• 2017 – HENDERSON / FEHILY
• 2018 – HENDERSON / GERAGHTY
• 2019 – CROMWELL / MARK WALSH
• 2020 – NICKY HENDERSON / GEARGHTY
• 2021 – DE BROMHEAD/ BLACKMORE
• 2022 – DE BROMHEAD/ BLACKMORE
• 2023 – HENDERSON / DE BOINVILLE
• 2024 – WILLIE MULLINS / 
• 2025 – SCOTT / 
• 2026 – WILLIE MULLINS / TOWNEND
• 2027 – 

STARTING PRICES

• 2014 – JEZKI – 9/1
• 2015 – FAUGHEEN – 4/5F
• 2016 – ANNIE POWER – 5/2F
• 2017 – BUVEUR D’AIR – 5/1
• 2018 – BUVEUR D’AIR – 4/6F
• 2019 – ESPOIR D’ALLEN – 16/1
• 2020 – EPATANTE – 2/1F
• 2021 – HONEYSUCKLE – 11/10F
• 2022 – HONEYSUCKLE – 8/11F
• 2023 – CONSTITUTION HILL – 4/11F
• 2024 – STATE MAN – 2/5F
• 2025 – GOLDEN ACE – 25/1
• 2026 – LOSSIEMOUTH – 7/5F
• 2027 – 

FULL STATS TABLE

RELEVANT RACES

Every season trainers prepare their better horses for certain targets, prepare them for those races considered stepping stones to the “big one” and more often than not, we’ll find the winner of this race has been right under our noses for months.

Nicky Henderson loves to get his main protagonist ready for the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and has taken that race in with such as PUNJABI, BINOCULAR and BUVEUR D’AIR, and won last season’s renewal with CONSTITUTION HILL.

Across the Irish Sea the Morgiana is the first of what I’d call the recognised trials for Cheltenham but that has not thrown up the winner of the Champion Hurdle since the days of HURRICANE FLY.

The market suggests IMPAIRE ET PASSE will be the number 1 for Closutton this season and I can see him turning up for (and winning), the Hattons Grace Hurdle.

Those races I consider as being trails for the Champion Hurdle are:

AT HOME:

• CHRISTMAS HURDLE
• FIGHTING FIFTH
• GERRY FIELDEN

IRELAND:

• HATTONS GRACE
• IRISH CHAMPION HURDLE
• MATHESON HURDLE
• MORGIANA HURDLE

CURRENT ODDS

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