Last season's race

• Winner: Murcia
• Jockey: Paul Townend
• Trainer: W P Mullins
• Owner: Mr K Alexander
• Age: 4 Weight: 10st 9lbs
• Starting Price: 11/4
• Season Form Figures: 331828
• Previous Best: 1st - D'Iena Listed Hurdle, Auteuil (June 2024)

By Paul Jones

Since the race was upgraded to Grade 1 status, favourite backers have fared pretty well collecting on 11 occasions in 20  runnings, so class has certainly shone through which was a very different story before that upgrade.

The heavy odds-on Hors La Loi III was certainly a class winner back in 1999 however as he went on to win the Champion Hurdle three years later and was the last horse to make all in this race.

Sixteen of the last 24 winners contested the Triumph Hurdle. No surprise that the Triumph should be the obvious starting point and especially since the Anniversary 4-Y-O Novices’ Hurdle was elevated to Grade 1 status in 2005 and, since that upgrade, 13 of the 20 winners arrived having either won or been placed at Prestbury Park, 10 of which in the Triumph. Murcia, therefore, was an unusual winner last season having finished eighth in the Fred Winter, and so joined Orsippus as the only other winner to have come out of the four-year-old handicap at Cheltenham to win this Grade 1.

The Triumph form has translated pretty well, despite the different nature of the Cheltenham and Aintree tracks, with six horses having completed the double in Pollardstown (1979), Detroit City (2006), Katchit (2007), Zarkandar (2011), Defi Du Seuil (2017) and Pentland Hills (2019), whereas Faasel, Walkon, Grumeti, Guitar Pete and the Willie Mullins-trained fillies Apple’s Jade and Zenta all gained ample compensation by winning here after finishing placed in the Triumph. Could Mullins send the fourth from last month - also a filly - in Selma De Vary?

In fact, all three of Mullins’s winners were fillies after Murcia’s success last season, while another of his fillies in Kargese finished runner-up in both races two years ago. Mullins ran nine in the Triumph this year, winning it with 50/1 chance Apolon De Charnie.

Four of the last seven successful fillies missed the Festival and fillies have fared well collectively as have they have been responsible for less than 10% representation, and none were more impressive than Apple’s Jade, who won by a staggering 41 lengths 10 years ago.

Seven of the last 25 winners of the Anniversary Hurdle had finished in the first four in the Finale Juvenile Hurdle at Chepstow which was been downgraded to a Grade 2 and was won by Tenter Le Tout.

Just trumping that Grade 2 over Christmas is the Finesse Hurdle on Cheltenham Trials Day won by Maestro Conti who went on to finish second in the Triumph. That Grade 2 contest has featured nine of the last 25 winners and Sir Gino completed the double two years ago having been forced to miss Cheltenham in between. Also at Cheltenham, the Grade 2 juvenile hurdle run at the November Meeting, won earlier this season by One Horse Town, has featured six of the last 21 winners.

Winners of the Grade 2 Adonis Novices’ Hurdle at Kempton in February should theoretically enjoy Aintree more than Cheltenham, or so many will argue and four of the last 16 Anniversary Hurdle winners ran in the Adonis, won by La Luna Artista in February.
 
Alan King has won four of the last 17 runnings (though none since 2013), and so is level with Nicky Henderson and one ahead of both Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins.

Of the last 37 winners, 30 had won over hurdles at least twice, while 26 of the last 30 winners had won or finished placed in Graded company earlier in the season. All bar three of the last 20 winners had finished in the first three last time out and French-breds have won 15 of the last 26 renewals.