The Triumph Hurdle is
Grade 1 juvenile novices' hurdle run over 2 miles and 179 yards on
the New Course at Cheltenham in March. Restricted, exclusively, to
horses aged four years – who, of course, start the season aged
three years – the race is currently scheduled as the opening
contest on the fourth and final day of the Cheltenham Festival.
The Triumph Hurdle was
inaugurated, at the now-defunct Hurst Park, in West Molesey, Surrey,
in 1939 and, following the Second World War, was run, uninterrupted,
until 1962. Hurst Park closed permanently that year and, in 1965, the
Triumph Hurdle was resurrected at Cheltenham, becoming part of the
Festival programme in 1968. The race was initially sponsored by the
Daily Express, followed, briefly, by the Elite Racing Club and, since
2002, by JCB.
Four winners of what
is, effectively, the seasonal championship for juvenile hurdlers in
Britain – namely Clair Soleil (1953), Persian War (1967), Kribensis
(1990) and Katchit (2007) – have gone on to win the Champion
Hurdle later in their careers. Interestingly, the jockey of the 1954
winner, Prince Charlemagne, was none other than 18-year-old Lester
Piggott, who would win his first Derby on Never Say Die later the
same year.
Veteran Seven Barrows
trainer Nicky Henderson has saddled seven winners of the Triumph
Hurdle – First Bout (1985), Alone Success (1987), Katarino (1999),
Zaynar (2009), Soldatino (2010), Peace And Co (2015) and Pentland
Hills (2019) – making him the most successful handler in the
history of the race. Anyone looking ahead to the 2023 renewal,
scheduled for 1:30pm on Friday, March 18, might also like to bear in
mind that seven of the last ten winners were trained in Ireland; at
this still early stage, the once-raced French filly Lossiemouth heads
the ante-post betting market.