Tips for the Christie's Foxhunter Chase Challenge Cup

The Christie's Foxhunter Chase is one of the oldest races at the Festival. The first running in 1904 was won by the 6/4 favourite Palmy Boy and The Christie's Foxhunter Chase is the only race at The Festival open to trainers who are not full-time professionals or hold a permit to train their family's horses. Run straight after the "main" Gold Cup the amateurs have their own chance to show off their talents in their own Gold Cup. Run over the same 3M 2.5F as the main event this race produces an interesting mixture of horses and trainers. On the equine front we often see a plenty of older experienced chasers who are nearing retirement but are still capable of turning in a good performance taking on the young pretenders who have taken on all-comers in the point to point field and are looking to make the leap to race under rules.

The race also produced the first lady jockey to win a race at the Festival - Caroline Beasley successful on Eliogarty in the 1983 Christie's Foxhunter Chase. Since then the race has been won four times by women - Katie Rimell on Three Counties in 1989, Polly Curling on Fantus in 1995, Fiona Needham in 2002 on Last Option and Rilly Goschen on Earthmover in 2004. Anyone looking for Paul Nicholls horse racing tips may want to look elsewhere, as the trainer has only landed the race once during his career.

There have been several dual winners of the Foxhunters but never a triple one and if there is a race for veterans at the Festival then this is it, as three of the five thirteen year olds to win since WW2 have come in this event.

Last time out saw a quality Foxhunters with 16 of the 24 runners coming into this off the back of a win either under rules or in the pointing field and that contributed to one of the better runnings and winners from the past few years. Having just won the Cheltenham Gold Cup the Twiston-Davies stable delivered another blow here with all the way winner Baby Run who was third the previous year. Under his typically attacking ride he had his rivals stone cold from a fair way out and though he made a mistake at the last his rivals were legless.

Second was Kilty Storm, winner of two points and a decent hunter chase at Leopardstown in his last three starts, he travelled well in a handy position and had every chance, but he could never quite get on terms with the winner as hard as he tried – still a cracking effort. Reach For The Top completed the 1-2-3, successful in a point last time but having his first start under rules in almost three years, had question marks against his stamina but he wasn´t ridden as though thought a doubtful stayer, racing handily and having every chance.

The only other horse to mention is the other joint favourite Roulez Cool who had some very decent form in France but appeared to have run his race when brought down four out with his race run.

From a betting point of view it is definitely the younger horses that you need to concentrate on, as 18 of the last 20 winners have been aged ten or younger. Horses over ten really do have an appalling record in the race considering that in the last 20 runnings of the race they have supplied nearly half of the runners and produced just two winners. One of the tried and trusted patterns in successfully selecting the winner of the Foxhunters used to that you had to look for a runner that had won its last outing – that system took a little knock early from 2000 as four winners came about that had been beaten on their last start. But good news, normal service has been resumed and both Cappa Bleu in 2009 and Baby Run in 2010 were successful before winning this race. Although a lot of people will be looking at the Cheltenham Gold Cup 2011, this race could offer value.

With last year's winner making all it is always interesting to look at how other winners were ridden and six of the last 15 winners have made virtually all the running – so if you find a front runner that is fancied it is worth considering.