Triumph Hurdle betting with William Hill
The Triumph Hurdle is the premier juvenile novices’ hurdle event in the National Hunt calendar and traditionally takes place on the Friday of the Cheltenham Festival.
A highly competitive Grade 1 contest is run over 2m1f (eight hurdles) on Cheltenham’s New Course, it regularly attracts a big field of top quality four-year-olds.
The Triumph Hurdle was transferred to Cheltenham in 1965 after its original home, Hurst Park in London, was forced to close. The race was given a spot at the Cheltenham Festival in 1968.
It often proves the springboard to a stellar hurdling career, with winners going on to compete in the top championship races like the Champion Hurdle or Stayers’ Hurdle.
The shortest-priced winner of the Triumph Hurdle was the Sir Peter O'Sullevan-owned Attivo, who justified odds of 4-5 in 1974, but Triumph Hurdle betting is generally has a much more open feel to it.
Triumph Hurdle betting tips
The Triumph Hurdle winner is normally a very fast horse who jumps and travels strongly. The nature of this race, i.e. a big field, strongly run affair, means that horses need to be able to handle the hustle and bustle of such a contest, so experience is helpful, too.
An ability to jump well is crucial because horses that make mistakes lose ground and struggle to recover because they have so much traffic in front of them. Try and avoid horses who make mistakes in their races when analysing Triumph Hurdle betting.
Not only do you need to have gears, any winner needs to be a strong stayer because the Cheltenham hill finds out any horse with suspect stamina, especially at the end of a strongly-run contest.
Horses who win this race often go up in trip, indeed 2014 winner Tiger Roll went on to win a Grand National. With that in mind, be wary of taking a short price in Triumph Hurdle betting about any horse who won a steadily-run race
If a horse is coming off the Flat, they need to have proved they stay well - at least 1m4f, because stamina is tested severely in the Triumph Hurdle.
Pentland Hills wasn’t anything special on the level before winning in 2019, but he had proved he stayed well, winning over 1m3½2f at Yarmouth and Windsor, and he joined a top jumps stable who just know how to train horses to win the Triumph Hurdle.
Triumph Hurdle betting trends
No trainer has anything like as formidable a record in this race as Nicky Henderson who has a conveyer belt of top quality four-year-old talent at his disposal.
Henderson-trained contenders always require very close attention in William Hill’s Triumph Hurdle betting, no matter what the price. His 2019 winner was sent off at 20-1.
This contest used to throw up big-priced winners on a regular basis but the creation of the Fred Winter Hurdle in 2005 has decreased the randomness to Triumph Hurdle results and the race is now generally won by horses going off single-figure odds, with the 2019 being an obvious exception.
Horses coming off the Flat need to have been useful in that sphere, useful being rated at least 80. It has also proved advantageous to have been tested over at least a mile and a half. Strong stayers from the Flat tend to have the ideal blend of speed and stamina for a strongly-run hurdle event.
It is extremely rare for a Triumph Hurdle winner to have not won a hurdles race prior to The Festival. However, there are exceptions to every rule and Farclas proved such an exception by winning in 2018, although his two hurdles defeats had both come in graded company.
They key trials are the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton and the Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown. The latter is a strong Grade 1 event that generally brings together the best of the Irish juveniles and it has become one of the key form lines in Triumph Hurdle betting.
Fillies have a poor record in the race. Snowdrop was a rare winner for the females in 2000.
Triumph Hurdle ante-post betting pointers
The Grade 2 Adonis Hurdle in February can often produce a horse that goes on to Triumph Hurdle success. Soldatino (2010) and Zarkandar (2011) both won the Kempton contest before going on to glory at the Cheltenham Festival.
The other key domestic Triumph Hurdle trial takes place at Cheltenham’s January meeting. The Grade 2 contest has been won by subsequent Triumph Hurdle winners Peace And Co and Defi Du Seuil in recent years.
Irish challengers often come via the Grade 1 Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown, won so impressively by the ill-fated Sir Erec in 2019.
That Leopardstown contest has produced a number of Triumph Hurdle winners so keep that particular form line onside when assessing Triumph Hurdle betting.
The Triumph Hurdle winner has Grade 1 options at Aintree and Punchestown in the spring, although Cheltenham winners tend to have a poor record in the Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle at Punchestown, although Katarino managed that rare double in 1999.
Triumph winners have a much better record in the Anniversary Hurdle at Aintree, with Detroit City, Katchit, Zarkandar and Defi Du Seuil all having completed that notable double in recent years.
Once out of the juvenile season, the main championship target for a Triumph Hurdle winner is the Champion Hurdle, taking in races like the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton along the way.
Triumph Hurdle winners are at such an early stage of their career that they very rarely switch to fences the following season.
Triumph Hurdle history and memorable winners
Few Triumph Hurdle winners have gone on to attain the sort of legendary status earned by 2014 hero Tiger Roll. Gordon Elliott’s first Triumph Hurdle winner has since gone on to win at multiple Cheltenham Festivals as well as consecutive Grand Nationals.
The fascinating sub-plot to Tiger Roll’s Triumph Hurdle victory was that he was partnered by Davy Russell who had been sacked as Gigginstown’s number one rider just a few weeks earlier.
Only a handful of Triumph Hurdle winners have gone on to win the Champion Hurdle but that’s exactly what Katchit did after landing the Triumph Hurdle in 2007.
The diminutive Katchit dug deep to land the 2008 Champion by a hard-fought length but, remarkably, wasn’t able to win another race in his career, something that is very rare among Champion Hurdle winners.
Katchit was trained by Alan King, someone whose runners always require close attention in Triumph Hurdle betting.
Not many horses have run out as impressive a winner of the Triumph Hurdle as Katarino in 1999 and he has to rank highly among the plethora of Nicky Henderson-trained winners of the race.
Katarino powered eight lengths clear of his rivals up the famous Cheltenham hill and followed up in the Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle at Punchestown the following month.
That eight-length success was almost doubled by Our Conor who dished out a 15-length thrashing to his rivals in 2013. However, the Dessie Hughes-trained gelding took a fatal fall in the following season’s Champion Hurdle so never got to fulfil his considerable potential.
Triumph Hurdle betting 2020
The Triumph Hurdle is contested by first-season hurdlers, many of which switch codes from the Flat and don’t emerge as contenders until the jumps’ season gets underway. Triumph Hurdle betting contenders will come to the fore from October 2019.
