The Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, registered as the Fred Winter Hurdle, is open to juvenile (four-year-old) hurdlers only.
It honours Fred Winter, who won 17 Festival races as a jockey and 28 as a trainer.
Introduced in 2005, it is run over the same course / distance as the Supreme Novices' Hurdle and Champion Hurdle.
It offers an alternative for young horses not considered quite good enough to run in the more prestigious Triumph Hurdle.
BOODLES JUVENILE HURDLE TRENDS
Since its inception, the Fred Winter has been dominated by French-bred juveniles or juveniles who had first ran in France.
However, 5 of the last 6 winners were bred in Ireland (albeit French-bred's finished runner-up in five of those).
By contrast, the only British-bred winner was Crack Away Jack in 2008 and even he started his career in France.
In the last 11 years there have been two winners at 25/1, three at 33/1, one at 40/1 and one at a monster 80/1.
The last three winners all ran at the preceding Christmas Festival at Leopardstown, with the 2020 & 2021 victors both contesting the Knight Frank Juvenile Hurdle on Boxing Day.
Both Paul Nicholls and Gordon Elliott have won the race three times.
But it is one of the few Cheltenham Festival races that Willie Mullins has yet to win (just 3 placed from 18 runners down the years).
That includes the last two favourites, Saint Sam (9/2f) in 2021 and Gaelic Warrior (13/8f) in 2022 - who both finished runner-up.
Of the 21 runners in 2023, four were wearing cheekpieces for the first time (p1). Those four horses finished 1-2-4-5 at odds of 18/1, 6/1, 18/1 & 40/1 respectively.
LAST 5 WINNERS’ DATA
PREVIOUS WINNERS
Brazil became the first top-weight to win the Boodles Juvenile Hurdle in 2022 - a first Festival success for trainer Padraig Roche:
Jeff Kidder won at 80/1 in 2021, the longest-priced Festival winner for 30 years - since 100/1 Norton's Coin in the 1990 Gold Cup.
Aramax won in 2020 for Gordon Elliott, who also trained the 3rd and 4th home:
Band of Outlaws was heavily backed in 2019 and the favourite obliged to give Joseph O'Brien his first Festival winner:
Veneer of Charm was another Gordon Elliott winner in 2018, at odds of 33/1:
Flying Tiger 2017
Willie Mullins appeared unlucky in 2016, when Voix du Reve crashed out at the last, albeit so did Gordon Elliott's Campeador.
The result was a Paul Nicholls' 1-2, with Diego Du Charmil just holding off Romain De Senam in a race record time of 3 mins 49.40 secs.
Nicholls had also saddled the Fred Winter 1-2 a year earlier, with Qualando finishing ahead of stablemate Bouvreuil.
Hawk High 2014
Flaxen Flare 2013
Silk Affair 2009
Back in 2007, Gaspara spead-eagled the field under an aggressive ride from 4lb claimer Andrew Glassonbury to give him and trainer David Pipe their first Festival success.
The winner was owned by David's father Martin Pipe and earned them a £75,000 bonus, coming three days after the unexposed filly won the Imperial Cup at Sandown:
The first ever winner, Dabiroun, was ridden by Nina Carberry, the first time in 18 years that a female jockey had won a Festival race.
