December Novices’ Chase

As the title implies, the December Novices’ Chase is a Grade 2 novices’ steeplechase run over 2 miles, 7 furlongs and 214 yards at Doncaster in December. Open to horses aged four years and upwards, the race is slightly unusual insofar as it was inaugurated, at Lingfield Park, in 1988 before being transferred to Doncaster as recently as 2014.

In its original incarnation, the December Novices’ Chase achieved Grade 2 status in 1998, making it the only National Hunt race to be staged at the Surrey venue to do so. In 2012 and 2013, the race was run as the RSA Novices’ Trial Chase, although no winner before, during or since has won the Broadway Novices’ Chase, a.k.a. the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase and, formerly, the RSA Chase, at the Cheltenham Festival.

Reigning champion trainer Paul Nicholls saddled the winner of the final running at Lingfield, Black Thunder (2013), and the winner of the first running at Doncaster, Virak (2014), together with Present Man (2016) and Threeunderthrufive (2021). Nicholls’ total of four winners makes him the most successful trainer in the history of the December Novices’ Chase.

At the time of writing, the 2022 renewal of the December Novices’ Chase, scheduled for Christmas Jumper Raceday, on Saturday, December 10, is less than a month away. Ante-post prices are not yet available but, if recent trends are to be believed, punters might do well to concentrate on horses aged six or seven years, who are officially rated 138, or higher, and have run at least twice during the current season. Paul Nicholls, who has 39% strike rate with his steeplechasers, so far, in the 2022/23 season, is reportedly ‘really strong’ in the novice chaser division, so anything he sends to Doncaster is worth close inspection.

Cheltenham Quiz

Here are festival.org.uk we’re ever primed to discuss, analyse and celebrate what is surely the jewel in the crown of UK racing, the Cheltenham Festival. Last year’s event just managed to avoid lockdown, and thankfully this year the Festival is once again taking place, albeit without an on-course crowd. With races including Champion Hurdle, Cheltenham Gold Cup, Queen Mother Champion Chase, and Stayers’ Hurdle to look forward to, and TV audiences of countless millions, we’re no doubt in for an amazing feast of racing action. To get us in the spirit, here’s a lighthearted Betway Racing Cheltenham quiz featuring some well known sporting names showing us what they know (or don’t!) about the sport of kings, and festival itself.

Kauto Star

Few, if any, steeplechasers of the modern era – not even the trail-blazing grey, Desert Orchid – have captured the imagination of the racing public in the same way as Kauto Star. Although rated fully a stone-and-a-half inferior to Arkle, according Timeform, Kauto Star nonetheless ranks joint-fourth, alongside Mill House, in the list of highest-rated steeplechasers of the Timeform Era. Poignantly, until usurped by Arkle, Mill House was widely regarded as the best British steeplechaser since Golden Miller in the Thirties, so the assertion of Ruby Walsh, who rode Kauto Star to 17 of his 23 victories, that he was ‘the horse of my lifetime’ is entirely justifiable.

Owned by Clive Smith and trained by Paul Nicholls – from whose yard his eventual departure, to embark upon a new career in dressage, in 2012, caused an acrimonious split between the pair – Kauto Star is probably best remembered for winning the King George VI Chase at Kempton an unprecedented five times between 2006 and 2011. However, Kauto Star ran at the Cheltenham Festival every year between 2006 and 2012. On his first attempt, as a six-year-old, he fell at the third fence, when favourite, in the Queen Mother Champion Chase but, for the rest of his career, exclusively contested the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Indeed, Kauto Star won the ‘Blue Riband’ event at his first attempt in 2007 and, although beaten 7 lengths by stable companion Denman when odds-on to defend his title in 2008, avenged that defeat with an impressive, 13-length defeat of the same horse on his return to Prestbury Park. In so doing, he became the first horse to regain the Cheltenham Gold Cup. All told, Kauto Star won 19 of the 31 steeplechases he contested – including 16 at Grade One level – at distances between 1 mile 7½ furlongs and 3 miles 2½ furlongs, and over £2.3 million in prize money. Tragically, after suffering complications to neck and pelvic injuries sustained in a freak accident in a field at home, Kauto Star was humanely euthanised in 2015.

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