![\"10](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/002407ba-614.jpg\"\/)
\nNicky Henderson celebrating a sixth win in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle<\/p>\n
Ante-post favourite Old Park Star battled to get his head in front and claim the Skybet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the opening race of the 2026 Cheltenham Festival.<\/p>\n
Nicky Henderson’s unbeaten hurdler came into the race as the 15-8 market leader under Nico de Boinville, and remained handily placed as Sober Glory made the running, with market rival Mighty Park tracking them for Ireland.<\/p>\n
The latter dropped away quite quickly, however, and as the hill approached it was Mydaddypaddy who loomed and attempted to throw down his own challenge.<\/p>\n
But he was unable to outdo Old Park Star, who pressed on again to come out on top by a length and a half from Sober Glory, with Mydaddypaddy a nose away in third.<\/p>\n
It was a disappointing start for the Irish horses in a 1-2-3 for the home nation.<\/p>\n
Henderson, winning the race for a sixth time, received a raucous round of applause from those gathered around the winner’s enclosure, and said: “We\u2019ve been here a long time, so we\u2019ve got to know each other!<\/p>\n
“This is a race that\u2019s been kind to us over the years. It\u2019s always a good race and the best novice hurdlers are all coming out to play.<\/p>\n
“You have to have a good horse and we\u2019re very lucky they\u2019ve come along \u2013 it\u2019s a long time since our first one in River Ceiriog (1986).<\/p>\n
“Constitution Hill was obviously freaky when he won it and then your Altiors and Shishkins went on to jump fences and I would imagine that will be next year\u2019s game for this horse.<\/p>\n
“On a day we\u2019ve said goodbye to Constitution Hill (over jumps), it\u2019s nice to come straight in and a bring on a new one we hope could be a star.<\/p>\n
“These young horses keep you going and I\u2019m not going anywhere unless they want to pension us off!<\/p>\n
“The first race on the first day is the best one you can get and England are one up (over Ireland)! I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll be saying that on Friday night, but we\u2019ll keep trying.”<\/p>\n
He added: “It got tough up there. Turning into the straight he had to quicken off what looked a good, solid pace \u2013 he had to be brave to come up the hill like that.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s still a big baby in our opinion \u2013 I think in another year he\u2019ll be a much better horse.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s quick and tough and his jumping is sound. He\u2019s got a huge future in front of him.”<\/p>\n
\nNicky Henderson celebrating a sixth win in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle<\/p>\n
Also well as the winner, the second, third and fourth were all trained in Britain, the only four home-based runners in the race.<\/p>\n
Joint-trainer Johnson White said of Sober Glory: “I couldn\u2019t be more delighted with the run, obviously very disappointed to finish second, particularly as it looked like he would win it going to the last, but as we said before today, we would have accepted that result before the race.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s a lovely horse going forward for his future career, so I\u2019m pleased to be standing here and he\u2019s run a very brave race. He\u2019s a gorgeous horse and we can\u2019t wait to get him back out again.”<\/p>\n
Asked if his future is over fences next season White, who trains alongside Philip Hobbs, said: “Very much so. Well, I say very much so, depending on what we do the rest of the season, potentially Aintree, as to whether we keep him going. Options are open, but we\u2019ve got lovely options available.<\/p>\n
“That would be the quickest ground he\u2019s run on. He\u2019s travelled well on it and we couldn\u2019t be, well we could have been a slight little bit happier, but he\u2019s run great.<\/p>\n
“Ben (Jones) thought he had it won at the last. He just thought the bigger crowd and the bigger stage, he just hit the front and had a little bit of a look, which is understandable, but overall, very pleased. But finishing second is never quite the same.”<\/p>\n
Dan Skelton said of Mydaddypaddy: “It was an almighty run from a five-year-old, I couldn\u2019t be prouder of the horse.<\/p>\n
“He left nothing out there and we\u2019ll look forward to coming back in the Arkle next year. The winner will probably be favourite again but I would hope we have something to say about that.<\/p>\n
“It was a bit rough and tumble, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s made any difference to the second or third winning and the winner was very good today.”<\/p>\n
Alan King\u2019s Baron Noir was fourth and he said: “He\u2019s confirmed the Punchestown bumper form with El Cairos (fifth) and I couldn\u2019t be more chuffed. He\u2019s an exciting horse.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ante-post favourite Old Park Star battled to get his head in front and claim the Skybet Supreme Novices’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-339037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}