Fred Winter Juvenile Novices' Handicap Hurdle Race Card

Below you will find the runners & entries for the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices' Handicap Hurdle for this year's Cheltenham Festival.

As a reminder, this is a full list of entries, but there are further declarations 5 days before the race, and final declarations 48 hours before.

This is where all of our tips will be for the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices' Handicap Hurdle , we also have you covered with daily tips.

The Fred Winter Juvenile Novices' Handicap Hurdle is the second handicap hurdle on ladies day and is run over a distance of 2 miles with 8 hurdles for the novices’ to negotiate with the race open to novice hurdlers aged four and older.

The race has been promoted to graded status and is now at Grade 3 handicap level, with £45,000 going to the winner.

The race was part of the newly developed Cheltenham Festival programme in 2005 when the festival was moved from three to four days and got a listed handicap status, which was then moved to Grade 3 in 2009.

The race is named after Fred Winter who died in 2004. Winter was both a national hunt jockey and then trainer and enjoyed success at the Cheltenham festival doing both, winning 17 times as a jockey and then 28 victories when a trainer.

The race is currently sponsored by Boodles, who are a jewellery company and therefore the races’ official title is the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.

2019 saw the well backed favourite Band of Outlaws deliver the goods for Ireland, as he went away winning for JJ Slevin and Joseph O’Brien. It was a second successive victory for the Irish who were successful in 2018 too with Veneer of Charm for Gordon Elliot and Jack Kennedy.

No jockey has won the race more than once, such is the competition however Paul Nichols has the most impressive record amongst the trainers, having trained the winner of the race on three occasions with the following horses:

Paul Nichols:

Sanctuaire (2010)

Qualando (2015)

Diego du Charmil (2016)

Despite the favourite winning the race in 2019, the race can often cause an upset, with young unexposed hurdlers taking advantage of low marks. The betting has reflected that, with six of the last eight winners being double figure prices and it may be worth again looking towards the bottom of the market, particularly with bookmakers who will be paying extra places come the day.

With his impressive record, anything Paul Nichols fields will no doubt warrant a lot of respect, but Gordon Elliot isn’t far away from joining him. Alongside his 2018 success with Veneer of Charm, he also won the 2013 race with Flaxen Flare and anything he sends over this year should be noted.