Cheltenham Novice Hurdlers Breeding & Pedigree Guide

Breeding & Pedigree Guide

Ahead of the start of the Cheltenham Festival, this blog will look at the three main novice hurdle races, the Supreme Novices Hurdle, the Baring Bingham Novices Hurdle, the Mares Novices Hurdle and the Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle.

OLBG members will be adding their horse racing tips on these races during the Festival and along with those, hopefully, this blog will help them can help you.

Novice races are usually for horses that hadn't won a race before the current season, so in practice, the runners are usually in their first season over the type of obstacle to be jumped.

That said some horses fail to win for a full season and so go on to become second-season novices. Some rules allow a horse that didn't win a novice race until very late in a season to compete in some novice races at the start of the following season, although this won't be in play at the festival.

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Supreme Novices Hurdle

The Supreme Novices Hurdle is a grade one contest over an extended two miles and as the name suggests it is for hurdlers in their novice year. Since it is the first race of the festival as the horses go off they are accompanied by the famous Cheltenham roar.

In terms of breeding, the last twenty winners have all been either French, British or Irish bred, however, those have also made up the vast number of the runners with only 24 bred elsewhere.

Chestnut runners don't have a great record, 18 of the last 20 races have featured at least one of those and they have not won any, they are 0-32 over the last twenty renewals.

Do watch out for any grey entries, 29 have been entered over the last 20 renewals and they have gone on to win 5 of those races so for a relatively low number of entrants they have won plenty.

There have not been any standout sires for this race, the last twenty winners all being sired by a different horse, Galileo (0-7), Kayf Tara (0-6) and Oscar (0-5) have all sired five or more entrants with success.

Here are the Supreme Novices Hurdle past winners for the last 5 renewals

Baring Bingham Novices Hurdle

The Baring Bingham Novices Hurdle is the middle-distance event for novice hurdlers taking place as the first race of the second day of the festival.

Ideally, you are looking for either a French or Irish-bred runner in this race as they have supplied 19 of the last 20 winners and have won every renewal since 2013.

The last winner who was not either French or Irish-bred was when the British-bred Simonsig who won in 2012, however, GB-bred runners are only 1-51 in the last twenty renewals.

There have been three dual-winning sires over the past twenty renewals with Court Cave (2017 & 2019), Germany (2014 & 2018) and Presenting (2011 & 2016) all providing multiple winners.

Those who have not been so lucky are the likes of Beneficial (0-8), Old Vic (0-7), Westerner (0-6), Getaway (0-6) and Milan (0-5).

Here are the Baring Bingham Novices Hurdle past winners for the last 5 renewals

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Mares Novices Hurdle

The Mares Novices Hurdle is the newest of the novices hurdles that feature at the Cheltenham Festival with it being added in 2016, the race is contested by mares over two miles and one furlong and is a Grade 2.

The first seven renewals saw either a French or Irish-bred runner win the race, however, in both 2023 & 2024, we saw British-bred runners win the renewals.

• 4-46 - French Bred
• 3-73 - Irish Bred
• 2-30 - British Bred
• 0-4 - Others

There have been no multiple winning sires of this race, however, there are five sires who have not had the best of times with Flemensfirth (0-7), Getaway (0-7), Martaline (0-5), Yeats (0-5) and Doctor Dino (0-5).

Here are the Mares Novices Hurdle past winners for the last 5 renewals

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Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle

This is the longest of the four novice hurdles races, taking place on the Friday of the festival, immediately before the Gold Cup is the Albert Bartlett Novices Chase which is contested over just shy of three miles.

All of the twenty winners of this race have been geldings, however, only thirteen of the 357 entries have not been geldings with 11 mares who have only produced one place and two 'Horse'.

The Irish-bred runners have won 70% of the renewals (14-20) including 6 of the last 7, the French bred have 4 wins with their last coming in 2021 and the British bred have just 2 wins which came back-to-back in 2016 & 2017.

17 of the 20 winners were bay horses, 2 of the other 3 were chestnut in colour whilst the other winner was a grey.

Oscar has been the best-performing sire in the race with three winners which came with Black Jack Ketchum (2006), At Fishers Cross (2013) and Kilbricken Storm (2018).

The other multiple winning sires are Kings Theatre, Martaline, Shantou and Video Rock all with two wins whilst Flemensfirth (0-10), Kayf Tara (0-7), Westerner (0-7), Getaway (0-6) and Supreme Leader (0-6) have poor records.

Here are the Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle past winners for the last 5 renewals

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Schedule for Tuesday at the Cheltenham Festival

Prepare for the ROAR of the Cheltenham Festival on the opening day when the tape goes up for the Supreme Novices Hurdle, the feature on Tuesday is the Champion Hurdle.

Schedule for Wednesday at the Cheltenham Festival

The dust has settled on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival and now on to day two. The feature on the second day is the Queen Mother Champion Chase. We also have the cross country scheduled on Wednesday, a race like Marmite, some love it and some don't!

Schedule for Thursday at the Cheltenham Festival

Halfway through the festival and onto day three where the Stayers Hurdle is the feature race. A hurdle race to test the stamina and see how can last best up the Cheltenham hill.

Schedule for Friday at the Cheltenham Festival

The final day of the festival and feature race that we have all been waiting for, the Cheltenham Gold Cup in which the Irish have been fairly dominant in recent years.