Supreme Novices’ Hurdle

Nowadays, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle is a Grade 1 contest, run over two miles and half a furlong on the Old Course at Cheltenham, where it is the opening event of the Cheltenham Festival, staged annually in March. As such, the runners are traditionally greeted by hullabaloo from the grandstands, popularly known as the ‘Cheltenham Roar’, as the tapes go up.

As the name suggests, the race is open to novice hurdlers – or, in other words, horses which, prior to the start of the current season, have not won a hurdle race – aged four years and upwards. It was inaugurated, as the Gloucestershire Hurdle, in 1946 and, until 1972, was run in two or more separate divisions, depending on the number of entries. The ‘Supreme Novices’ Hurdle’ title was adopted in 1978 and the race currently has a safety limit of 22 runners.

Willie Mullins, who, at the time of writing, has been leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival 11 times in the last 14 years, is also the leading trainer in the history of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. Indeed, Tourist Attraction (1995) was Mullins’ first Festival winner and he has since added Ebaziyan (2007), Champagne Fever (2013), Vautour (2014), Douvan (2015), Klassical Dream (2019) and Appreciate It (2021) for a total of seven winners overall. Aside from the Mullins’ septet, other notable winners of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle down the years have included Hors La Loi III (1999), Brave Inca (2004), Altior (2016), Shiskin (2020) and Constition Hill (2022).