Epatante

Nicky Henderson and Henry de Bromhead have spoken out against the rumoured changes to the National Hunt programme in Britain that would see Grade 1 winners not being qualified to run in the Mares' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.  Dual Champion Hurdle winner Honeysuckle signed off on her glittering career for de Bromhead by notching a 13th Grade 1 and a second Mares' Hurdle success in what many people describe as one of the greatest moments in Cheltenham Festival history back in 2023.  Henderson has trained a galaxy of star...

Leading National Hunt sire No Risk At All (Fr) (My Risk {Fr}) will miss the remainder of the 2023 covering season after suffering an accident in a paddock at Haras de Montaigu in France. According to the farm, the 16-year-old stallion, whose produce include G1 Aintree Hurdle and two-time G1 Christmas Hurdle winner Epatante, will be on box rest for a month and the farm hopes to have him in full readiness to resume his career in 2024.

Venturing fearlessly into jumps territory this week, this correspondent would never be so bold as to offer tips or predictions for the Cheltenham Festival. There is only one safe bet to be had, and that is that Keeneland's indefatigable European representative Ed Prosser will be up with the larks to cook the finest Full English for his housemates, and at some stage over the next four days will serenade us with his inimitable version of Rhinestone Cowboy. The Prosser baritone is certainly much easier on the ears than the newly...

CHELTENHAM, UK—International Women's Day carried over from Sunday to Tuesday for the curtain up of the Cheltenham Festival at which three of the day's four Grade 1 contests were won by mares bred in Ireland, France and Britain. Admittedly, one of those races was restricted to mares only but the Close Brothers Mares' Hurdle provided arguably the contest of the day, between the Willie Mullins-trained favourite Benie Des Dieux (Fr) (Great Pretender {Ire}) and Honeysuckle (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}), the headline act in a strong team of jumps mares owned by...

The latest instalment of Emma Berry's winter series on the crossover between the Flat and National Hunt scenes On Boxing Day, Epatante (Fr) (No Risk At All {Fr}) followed the example of her stable-mate Verdana Blue (Ire) (Getaway {Ger}) by winning the G1 Christmas Hurdle at Kempton. Her five-length victory (with the previous year's winner back in fourth) came on the back of a similarly impressive win at Newbury in November and launched the 6-year-old mare to the head of the betting for the Unibet Champion Hurdle on Mar. 3....