This Grade 2 race on Thursday 15th March 2018 at 16.50 GMT is the youngest of all the races held over the four day festival at Cheltenham, having taken place for the first time in 2016. This 2 mile and 1 furlong Hurdle race is sponsored by Trull House Stud, hence the name of this Mares’ Novices Hurdle race.
This race is run on the New Course at Prestbury Park, and its run left handed across eight hurdles. Competitors are mares and novice fillies and for horses aged four and older, who haven’t won a race before this season began.
The 2017 winner of this Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle race was Let’s Dance trained by Willie Mullins and ridden by Ruby Walsh, with a prize purse of £80,000. As the race is only in its third year, it was also won by the same jockey, Ruby Walsh on Limini in 2016, once again trained by Willie Mullins.
The race is named after Dawn Run, who first won the Champion Hurdle in 1984, and then the Gold Cup in 1988 at the Cheltenham Festival. With the claim to fame as being the most successful racing mare in the history of National Hunt racing, this Irish Thoroughbred had this Novices’ Hurdle race named after her.
