2027 Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase

Previously known as the RSA Chase, The Brown Advisory Novices' Chase is a 3-mile race that runs on the Old Course at Cheltenham. It is a Grade 1 National Hunt chase and horses which are age five year or olds are able to take part.

Novice chasers tend to use The Brown Advisory Novices' Chase as a platform to hopefully move on to more success in future Cheltenham Festivals. Many horses have gone on to the Gold Cup as a result of winning this race.

From 1946 the race was originally called the Broadway Novices' Chase. However, from the 1960's it took sponsorship from various different places. It became the RSA Insurance Novices Chase in 2009, taking over from the Royal & SunAlliance who sponsored it between 1997-2008.

In 2020, RSA Insurance advised it would no longer be sponsoring the race after 43 years, and from 2021 it has become known as The Brown Advisory Novices' Chase.

Winners of this race have gone on to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the most recent of which was Lord Windermere in 2014. In 2020 Minella Indo finished second in this race and went on to win the Gold Cup in 2021.

PRIZE MONEY

When Willie Mullins won his first of five RSA Insurance Novices' Chase's in 1998, he won £54,817.49. Florida Pearl was priced at 11/8 and was the favourite for the race, winning it by 1.5 lengths.

In 2009 when RSA Insurance Group took over the race, Cooldine was the winner with Ruby Walsh on board. Cooldine was the 9/4 favourite for this race and it showed when he won by 16 lengths! Connections won £96,917.

The purse for race in 2019 sat at £175,000. Topofthegame was the winner and took home £98,473 when beating Santini by half a length. This was a close-fought race with the three favourites finishing in the top three.

The prize fund didn't change in 2020 when the JP McManus owned Champ took the honours. Named after AP McCoy, he was ridden by Barry Geraghty and went off at odds of 4/1.

2021 saw a dip in prize money due to the festival being held behind closed doors. Willie Mullins trained his fifth winner in Monkfish with Paul Townend on board. In total £131,250 was on offer with winning connections taking £75,163.

By the time 2022 rolled around nearly everything was back to normal and the prize money had been restored to its full value of £175K. The winner was L'homme Presse for trainer Venetia Williams and jockey Charlie Deutsch.

Trainer Patrick Neville picked up his first win in the race in 2023 when Sam Twiston-Davies partnered The Real Whacker to victory. The team took home £98,473 for the win.

FAMOUS WINNERS

As the race has been around since 1946 there has been a few big winning names along the way. One of which was Denman in 2007. After winning this race Denman went on to win the 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup and finished with a Timeform rating of 183.

Garrison Savannah is another Gold Cup winning horse. He won this race in 1991 and, like Denman the following year, went on to win the biggest race at the Cheltenham Festival. He won the race at 16/1 by the narrowest of margins - a neck.

Bobs Worth, who won this race in 2012, was another horse who followed it up with a Cheltenham Gold Cup win. Barry Geraghty rode him to victory, beating Davy Rusell and First Lieutenant by 2.5 lengths.

Rachael Blackmore came very close to winning this race in 2020 but had to settle for second place behind Champ and Barry Geraghty.

And the 2026 winner, Kitzbuhel, meant an eighth win for trainer Willie Mullins, making him the leading trainer in the race.

RACE RECORDS

Pat Taaffe holds the record for the leading jockey in Novices' Chase history. He rode winners five times between 1953 and 1970. His first one came on Coneyburrow in 1953. He also won on Solfen (1960), Grallagh Cnoc (1961), Arkle (1963) and Proud Tarquin (1970).

The leading trainer, Willie Mullins. His eight wins have come from Florida Pearl (1998), Rule Supreme (2004), Cooldine (2009), Don Poli (2015), Monkfish (2021), Fact To File (2024), Lecky Watson (2025), and Kitzbuhel (2026).

Next in line are Fulke Walwyn and Nicky Henderson, both of whom have four wins each. Walwyn's four winners came between 1948 and 1957.

Nicky Henderson has bagged victories with Trabolgan (2005), Bobs Worth (2012), Mite Bite (2017), and Champ (2020).