The Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle is one of the more recent additions to the Cheltenham Festival, becoming a race in 2016, and has been run every year since.
It was introduced to give mares their own novice race, in a bid to make the racing program more attractive to mares and provide them with a reason to stay in training longer.
From here, the Mares’ Hurdle is the main future race, while the addition of a Mares’ Chase also means those who want to go over the big fences have something to aim for.
This is the beginning of it all, and aside from the Champion Bumper, it is usually the first place where we will see mares in action at the festival.
The Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle was previously the penultimate race of the day but in 2025 the powers that be made the decision to move it to the first race, perhaps so it gets a bit more love.
Race Facts
Day Three is when the Festival moves from the Old Course onto the New Course, so this race is run there and it’s run left-handed. It lasts for two miles and one furlong, with eight hurdles that must be jumped over the course of it. The Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle is, as the name suggests, for novice fillies and mares. It’s open to horses aged four and up, with four-year-olds given a weight allowance of ten stone eight pound. Older horses can have up to eleven stone four pound and there are a series of penalties for certain horses.
Prior to 2025 if a horse has won a Class 1 Weight for Age hurdle they would have to carry a five pound penalty, whilst winners of a Class 2 Weight for Age hurdle would carry a three pound penalty. Three pounds in penalty would also be applied to winners of a Class 1 handicap hurdle. That was, however, changed in 2025 and now there are no penalties for previous winners.
In 2023 there was a prize pot of over £105,000, which was £25,000 more than in 2017. The Grade 2 race was won in between 2016 and 2020 by horses trained by, yes you guessed it, Willie Mullins.
Records For Most Wins
| Record Type | No of Wins | Record Holder |
|---|---|---|
| Horse | 1 | Multiple |
| Trainer | 4 | Willie Mullins |
| Jockey | 2 | Ruby Walsh & Rachael Blackmore |
Race Trends: Winners Since 2016
Previous Winners
| Year | Winner | Age | Odds | Prize | Jockey / Trainer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | White Noise | 6 | 40/1 | £59,083.50 |
J: Tom Bellamy
T: Kim Bailey & Mat Nicholls
|
| 2025 | Air Of Entitlement | 6 | 16/1 | £59,083.50 |
J: Rachael Blackmore
T: H De Bromhead
|
| 2024 | Golden Ace | 6 | 10/1 | £59,084 |
J: Lorcan Williams
T: Jeremy Scott
|
| 2023 | You Wear It Well | 6 | 16/1 | £59,084 |
J: G Sheehan
T: Jamie Snowden
|
| 2022 | Love Envoi | 6 | 15/2 | £59,084 |
J: J J Burke
T: H Fry
|
| 2021 | Telmesomethinggirl | 6 | 5/1 | £37,982 |
J: Rachael Blackmore
T: H De Bromhead
|
| 2020 | Concertista | 6 | 9/2 | £50,643 |
J: Daryl Jacob
T: W P Mullins
|
| 2019 | Eglantine Du Seuil | 5 | 50/1 | £50,643 |
J: Noel Fehily
T: W P Mullins
|
| 2018 | Laurina | 5 | 4/7 F | £51,255 |
J: P Townend
T: W P Mullins
|
| 2017 | Let's Dance | 5 | 11/8 F | £45,560 |
J: Ruby Walsh
T: W P Mullins
|
| 2016 | Limini | 5 | 8/11 F | £42,712.50 |
J: Ruby Walsh
T: W P Mullins
|
Race Trivia
Obviously the fact that the race is so new means that there isn’t a huge amount of information that we can tell you. If you want to put a bet on, though, then you might want to have a look to see if there’s a horse trained by Willie Mullins – together with Ruby Walsh the pair won both of the first two races. Ruby Walsh may have won it again in 2018 if not for breaking his leg on Ladies Day, that didn’t stop Willie Mullins however making it three from three.
He made it four in a row in 2019 winning again, this time with jockey Noel Fehily, and then five in a row in 2020 winning with Concertista ridden by Daryl Jacob. The way things are going in time they may need to rename this race the Willie Mullins Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle.
Saying that, Rachael Blackmore and Henry de Bromhead broke that run in 2021 with their winner Telmesomethinggirl. That made Rachel the first female jockey to win the race. Love Envoi’s win in 2022 was the first for a British trainer in the race, Harry Fry, that has been Irish dominated since its inception. The Brits continued by winning again in 2023 with You Wear It Well trained by Jamie Snowdon and ridden by Gavin Sheehan and then again in 2024 with the Jeremy Scott trained Golden Ace winning, ridden by Lorcan Williams.
Blackmore and de Bromhead then became the only other jockey and trainer to win this race more than once when they chalked up their second win together in 2025. It is nice to see a female jockey on the race records list at Cheltenham, it may even be a first ever.
In 2026 we saw the biggest priced winner since 2019 win this when the Kim Bailey and Mat Nicholls trained White Nosie beat the Mullins and De Bromhead favourites to come home at 40/1 on a wet running.
Those of you familiar with the Cheltenham Festival may well recognise the name of the race. Having won the Champion Hurdle in 1984, Dawn Run went on to win the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival in 1988. An Irish Thoroughbred, she is still the most successful racemare in National Hunt racing history. The only racehorse ever to win both the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup, Dawn Run’s name comes from the fact that her parents were named Deep Run and Twilight Slave. Given her success, it’s no wonder the Cheltenham Festival organisers decided to name a race after her!
Cheltenham Festival Mares’ Program First Step
The Mares’ program has improved with the addition of this race and the Mares’ Chase, so we now have three races they can exclusively target.
Of course, there’s always talk around whether the better mares should be going against the boys in top races, such as the Champion Hurdle, but for the rest, this is a welcome addition.
This race is firmly the first step, a place for horses to meet during their novice hurdling season, without going and taking on the big boys. While mares get a 7lb allowance in open races, it’s a tough ask to go and win something like the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, so most come here.
The best will then find themselves in the Mares’ Hurdle a year later. That race is over an extra half mile, so it’s not the obvious stepping stone for some, depending on what trip they need.
Finally, for those going chasing, the Mares’ Chase is the third step, a race that’s also run over half a mile further than this contest. The novice is over two miles, and the other two races are over two and a half miles.
As it currently stands, these races all take place on the final two days of the festival. While this may not mean too much in terms of what day they’re on, it does mean that all three mares’ races will take place on the new course at Cheltenham.
Early Willie Mullins Dominance
There are plenty of races that Willie Mullins dominates at the Cheltenham Festival, and it should come as no surprise that he had strong early dominance over this race after it was created.
2016 saw the first running, and Mullins, more than anyone else at that time, had a really strong record when it came to racing talented mares and getting them to win on the track.
He was doing this before the mares program was really introduced, and definitely used his head start to his advantage.
In terms of this particular race, he would win it for the first five years in a row, starting with the 2016 running and going through until 2020.
Since then, there’s no doubt that other trainers have taken the mare program more seriously and given it the respect it deserves, with some big prizes on offer. That’s left Mullins not winning the prize as often, which is good for the game, but of course, he’ll always have runners to respect in any mares’ contest.