The feature race on the second day of the Cheltenham Festival and is the leading minimum-distance chase in the National Hunt calendar.
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The Queen Mother Champion Chase is a Grade 1 National Hunt chase in the Cheltenham Festival, run over a distance of 2 miles (3,219m) with 12 fences to be jumped. It will take place on Wednesday 13th March 2024 | Time: 15:30.
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In Detail
The Queen Mother Champion Chase is run on the second day of the Cheltenham Festival on the Old Course at Cheltenham. The race is for horses aged five or older and is 2 miles long. There are 13 fences to be jumped in the race.
Initially, when the race was first introduced into the festival in 1959, it was called the National Hunt Two-Mile Champion. The race changed to the Queen Mother Champions Chase in 1980 to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday.
She had been a long supporter of jumps racing and owned a significant number of National Hunt horses. Her own horse, Game Spirit, finished second in the race in 1976.
Unlike many of the other well-known festival races, The Queen Mother Champion Chase had no sponsor until 2008. Since then it has had four different sponsors, with the current one being bookmakers Betway.
The race has had many horses win it more than once. Most of which have won the race in consecutive years.
In 1992 when the joint leading trainer of the race Nicky Henderson won it for the first time with Remittance Man, connections received £63,390 for crossing the line first. He had also won the Arkle Chase the year before.
When legendary horse Sprinter Sacre, also trained by Henderson, won his first Queen Mother in 2013 the prize money for him was £208,300.
Five years later and Nicky Henderson was still winning the race. This time with two time Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, Altior (2019, 2018). The overall purse was a staggering £400,000 connections received £225,880 from each race as a result.
The Queen Mother Champion Chase is one of the most valuable races at the Cheltenham Festival. Despite prize money getting cut in 2021, due to no ticket sales, there was still £300,000 on offer. Put The Kettle On for Henry De Bromhead won the race, earning £168,810.
Prize money was restored to full value of £400K in 2022 when Energumene won the race for jockey Paul Townend and trainer Willie Mullins.
The first notable winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase was Fortria in 1960. Fortria was the first horse to retain its crown as the winner of the race after winning it again in 1961. Fortria was also the first horse that joint leading jockey Pat Taaffe and joint leading trainer Tom Dreaper won the race with.
Badworths Boy in 1983 was the first horse to win the race more than twice. He won all three races between 1983-1985. These were the only three major wins on Badworths Boy’s career and also became the 12th horse in jumping history pass the £100,000 earnings mark – a fraction of what he could have earned if racing today.
Sprinter Sacre is another big winner of the Queen Mother. He first won the race in 2013 and went off at odds of 1/4. This was the lowest starting price at a Cheltenham Festival since 1966 when Arkle went off at 1/10. This race saw Timeform give him a rating of 192 and it was considered one of the greatest performances in National Hunt history.
Altior was supposed to run in 2020 but was sidelined due to a minor injury. He won the race in 2018 and 2019, giving Nicky Henderson his 6th and 7th wins in this race. Altior won a staggering 19 races in a row and has won at four consecutive Cheltenham Festivals.
The 2020 winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase was Politologue. He won for trainer Paul Nicholls and jockey Harry Skelton. Like Altior the year before, he too was supposed to defend his crown in 2021. However, injury prevented him, and he was withdrawn on the day.
Badsworth Boy holds two records in the Queen Mother Champion Chase. He is the most successful horse in the race’s history with three wins from 1983-85. He also has the most consecutive wins of any horse in the race.
The leading jockey is a title held by two men. Pat Taaffe set the record from 1960-1970 with five wins in that time. Barry Geraghty equaled this record on Sprint Sacre in 2013, with his first win coming on Moscow Flyer in 2003. Geraghty is now retired so this record could be broken in the future.
The leading trainer is also a shared title. Tom Dreaper set the record with six wins from 1960-70. He trained all of the horses Pat Taaffe won on aswell. Nicky Henderson has achieved six wins from 1992-2019. The win with Politologue in 2020 for trainer Paul Nicholls also gave him a sixth win in the race so the record is now a three-way split.
Finally, the leading owner is another accolade that is shared between three people. George Ansley owned Fortria and Straight Fort, which were trained and raced by Tom Dreaper and Pat Taaffe. These two horses earned Ansley three wins. Doug Armitage was the owner of Badsworth Bay which also got him three winners. And John hales owned One Man (1998), Azertyuiop (2004) and Politologue (2020).
Guide to
This is the feature race of day two of the Cheltenham Festival and is the premier race of the racing calendar for the quickest chasers in training. It was first run in 1959 but had it’s name changed in 1980 to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday. Unlike many of the other Festival races, The Queen Mother Champion Chase had never been sponsored but that changed in 2008 when Seasons Holidays added their name to the title. Betway has now taken over the sponsorship.
It is run at a furious pace and requires speed, stamina and precision jumping so much so that only one horse has won it three times and that was Badsworth Boy in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Altior is the most recent back-to-back winner in 2018 and 2019 for trainer Nicky Henderson and jockey Nico De Boinville. Willie Mullins is the current winning trainer with Energumene, the champion in 2022.
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The Queen Mother Champion Chase is a Grade 1 National Hunt horse race run on the Old Course.
The Queen Mother Champion Chase is run over a distance of about 2 miles (3,219 metres)
During its running there are 12 fences to be jumped.
The chase is the leading minimum-distance chase in the National Hunt calendar.
Most successful horse with 3 wins is Badsworth Boy – 1983, 1984, 1985
The Queen Mother Champion Chase as of 2022 offered a total prize fund of £400,000.
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Queen Mother Chase News Cheltenham Festival NewsLadies’ Day
| Time | Race | Distance | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:30 | Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle | 2m abt 5f | Hurdle |
| 14:10 | Brown Advisory Novices’ Steeple Chase (RSA Chase) | 3m abt ½ f | Chase |
| 14:50 | Coral Cup Hurdle (Handicap) | 2m abt 5f | Hurdle |
| 15:30 | Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase | Abt 2m | Chase |
| 16:10 | Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase | 3m 7f | Chase |
| 16:50 | Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase | 2m abt ½f | Chase |
| 17:30 | Weatherbys Champion Bumper (A Standard Open NH Flat Race) | 2m abt ½f | Flat |
