Champion Hurdle History

The Champion Hurdle race is run on the first day of the annual Cheltenham Festival, held in March at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, attracting thousands of punters eager to see if the Champion Hurdle odds they have betted on work in their favour.

The festival usually coincides with St Patrick’s Day and as such attracts a large Irish contingent.

The Champion Hurdle National Hunt event is the United Kingdom’s most prestigious hurdle horse race and includes a total of eight hurdles to be cleared over the 2 miles 110 yards course of the race. Carrying a Grade 1 rating, the race is open to horses aged four years and above.

Early Champion Hurdle History

The Champion Hurdle event boasts a long and proud heritage in the UK’s National Hunt racing history, with the first race dating back to 1927. The winning horse back then was Blaris, jockeyed by George Duller with Bill Payne as the trainer. The following year’s race was won by Brown Jack, with Bilbie Rees as jockey and Aubrey Hastings as the trainer.

Champion Hurdle Not Run

In the event’s fifth year - 1931 - the race could not take place due to unrelenting weather conditions. The race was then held for an unbroken decade before World War II caused the 1943 as well as 1944 races to be cancelled.

There were no further cancellations of the event subsequent to World War II until the new millennium. In 2001, the race had to be cancelled because of the foot-and-mouth crisis in the United Kingdom.

Champion Hurdle Winners

The most recent (2007) Champion Hurdle results table saw seven-year-old Sublimity taking first place.

The jockey was Philip Carberry and John Carr was the trainer. The year before saw Brave Inca coming in first, jockeyed by Tony McCoy and trained by Colm Murphy. Notably, McCoy also jockeyed 1997’s winning horse – Make a Stand.

One-eyed Wonder

A particularly interesting piece of the Champion Hurdle’s history was made in 1963 when the race was won by the one-eyed Winner Fair. The eight-year-old hurdler was trained by George Spencer in County Tipperary, Ireland. Of further interest is that Spencer is father to champion flat jockey Jamie Spencer.

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