Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle

On Day Three of the Cheltenham Festival, dubbed ‘St. Patrick’s Thursday’ by the Jockey Club, the racing action switches from the Old Course at Prestbury Park to the largely parallel, but more demanding, New Course. The first race on the card is the Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, a.k.a. the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, a Grade 2 contest run over two miles and a furlong and, as the name suggests, open to fillies and mares, aged four years and upwards, who are still at the ‘novice’ stage of their careers.

The race is a fairly recent addition to the Festival program, having been established in 2016. It has been sponsored throughout its existence, but commemorates the racemare Dawn Run, who remains the only horse ever to have won the Champion Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The first five renewals all went the way of Country Carlow trainer Willie Mullins, courtesy of Limini (2016), Let’s Dance (2017), Laurina (2018), Eglantine du Seuil (2019) and Concertista (2020), but the last three have been won by horses trained in Britain.

Interestingly, Laurina was the last of three winning favourites from nine runnings so far, all nine winners were aged five or six years, all nine had run at least twice during the current season and eight of them had won at least once. None of the nine winners had previously won at Cheltenham, but eight of them had won at least once at, or around, two miles and a furlong.