Spa Novices’ Hurdle

Probably better known by its sponsored title, Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, the Spa Novices’ Hurdle is run over three miles on the New Course at Cheltenham, where it is currently scheduled as the fourth race on Gold Cup Day at the Cheltenham Festival, immediately before the Cheltenham Gold Cup itself. The race was inaugurated, as a Grade 2 event open to novice hurdlers aged four years and upwards, in 2005, when the Cheltenham Festival was extended from three days to four.

In 2008, the same year that Albert Bartlett took over sponsorship from Brit Insurance, the race was promoted to Grade 1 status and much more recently, in 2023, closed to four-year-olds. In 18 previous runnings, no four-year-old had ever won anyway, so the latter change was largely inconsequential. In fact, nine of the last 10 renewals have been won by horses aged six or seven.

Despite the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle being a Grade 1 contest, the last winning favourite was At Fishers Cross, ridden by Tony McCoy, in 2013, and the last 10 renewals have produced just one winner at a single-figure price. Indeed, winners at 50/1, 33/1 (twice), 18/1 (twice), 16/1 and 14/1 (twice) in the past decade seem to suggest that the result of the race is at least as unpredictable, if not more so, than the notorious Festival handicaps. Rather more predictably, that man Willie Mullins is the leading trainer in the history of the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, having saddled Penhill (2017), Monkfish (2020) and The Nice Guy (2022).