Triumph Hurdle

The fourth and final day of the Cheltenham Festival, a.k.a. Gold Cup Day, is the day around which, for many, the whole of the National Hunt season revolves. The first race of the day is the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle, which is run over two miles and a furlong on the New Course and open to juvenile novice hurdlers, which are all, by definition, four-year-olds.

Inaugurated in 1939, the Triumph Hurdle was run at the long-defunct Hurst Park, near West Molesey, Surrey, until 1962, before being transferred to Cheltenham three years later and becoming part of the Cheltenham Festival in 1968. The race has sometimes, but not often, proved a trial for the Champion Hurdle, with Clair Soleil (1953), Persian War (1967), Kribensis (1988) and Katchit (2007) all going on to victory in the two-mile hurdling championship. Persian War, of course, won the Champion Hurdle three years running, in 1968, 1969 and 1970.

Coincidentally, the leading trainer in the history of the Champion Hurdle, Nicky Henderson, is also the leading trainer in the history of the Triumph Hurdle, having saddled First Bout (1985), Alone Success (1987), Katarino (1999), Zaynar (2009), Soldatino (2010), Peace And Co (2015) and Pentland Hills (2019). As might be expected of an out-and-out test of class, the race has produced five winning favourites in the past decade, plus three other winners at single-figure prices. Pentland Hills and Burning Victory (2020) had yet to be awarded an official rating by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), but the other eight winners in the last 10 years were rated at least 139.