Cheltenham Festival 2011 Results

The headlines before the 2011 Cheltenham Festival began were focussing on the prize money. For the first time, the Gold Cup was offering £500,000 in total prize money, a milestone it had not reached before.

Beautiful weather and good ground helped Willie Mullins experience his first festival as top trainer with 4 winning horses, while Ruby Walsh made top jockey for the fourth year in a row, riding 5 horses across the line first.

Three of these came on Champion Day, the Champion Hurdle among them, atop Hurricane Fly.

Someone else who was celebrating on day 1 was William Hill, who had a £1 million liability on Cue Card in the Supreme Novices Hurdle, so when the hotly tipped favourite only managed 4th place, they breathed a sigh of relief.

It was also during the 2011 Cheltenham Festival that amateur jockey Mr Sam Waley-Cohen became known to a wider audience too, after he won the Gold Cup with Long Run for Nicky Henderson, and a share of that cool half a million pounds.

What made his win even more of a talking point, was the fact that he beat Ruby Walsh on Kauto Star, and Sam Thomas on Denman, both star quality horses which had won the big race on previous occasions. Long Run was the favourite for the race, but many had also bet on the experience of one of the other two.

Elsewhere, Big Buck’s won the Stayer’s Hurdle for a record equalling 3rd time in a row, and happily, it was the first festival in a while in which there were no horses killed during racing.

15th March 2011 – Day One (Champion Day)

16th March 2011 – Day Two (Ladies’ Day)

17th March 2011 – Day Three (St. Patrick’s Day)

18th March 2011 – Day Four (Gold Cup Day)