Thirty Three Remain In Contention For Betfair Hurdle

Thirty-three remain in contention for the Betfair Hurdle, Britain’s richest handicap hurdle worth £155,000, taking place at Newbury.

Tuesday 23rd January 2024

Betfair Super Saturday will be the inaugural Premier Raceday to be staged at the Berkshire track with a total prize pot of £411,000 on offer across the card. Following the latest scratching stage today, Nemean Lion trained by Kerry Lee heads the weights at 12st, with the Nicky Henderson trained Luccia the current favourite with sponsors Betfair with an allocated weight of 11st 9lbs.

Luccia was last seen when winning the Betfair Exchange Trophy at Ascot with stablemate Impose Toi finishing a neck second. Third placed that day was the Harry Fry trained Altobelli who remains in contention for Newbury’s prize pot. Last month’s premier handicap at Ascot could hold the key to Newbury’s feature hurdle race of Betfair Super Saturday with a further five runners that day remaining on course for the Betfair Hurdle including Moveit Like Minnie (N. Twiston-Davies), Hansard (G.Moore), Onlyamatteroftime (W.Mullins), Iberico Lord (N. Henderson) and Faivoir (D. Skelton). After a below-par effort in the Grade 1 William Hill Formby Novices’ Hurdle, Tellherthename, bounced back with an impressive win at Huntingdon. The five-year-old remains in contention for the Ben Pauling yard.

Currently operating at a 50% strike rate, Harry Derham’s yard are in great form and his consistent hurdler Brentford Hope remains on target for this major handicap prize:

“The Betfair Hurdle is very much the plan for Brentford Hope, we’ve had it in the back of our minds all season. Obviously, he has run very well round Newbury previously, we were thinking about running him at Christmas, but we decided to keep him fresh. These big handicaps take a lot of winning, we wanted to have him as fresh and well and in as good a form as possible going into a race like this. He’s training well, he’s got a few strong pieces of work to go between now and then, but we are very much planning to go and very much looking forward to it.”

Betfair spokesman, Barry Orr, commented today:

‘’It’s good to see such a strong field going forward at today’s scratching stage with Betfair Exchange Trophy winner, Luccia, now clear favourite at 7/1. Both Iberico Lord and Aurigny Mill have been popular in recent skirmishes and are 8/1 and 14/1 respectively now’’.

The Betfair Hurdle – Sponsors Odds: 7/1 Luccia, 8/1 Altobello, Iberico Lord, Lookaway, 9/1 Ocastle des Mottes, 10/1 , Brentford Hope, Go Dante, Nemean Lion, 12/1 Tellherthename, Under Control, 14/1 Aurigny Mill, Doddiethegreat, Spirit d’Aunou, 16/1 Calico, Hansard, Kamsinas, Knickerbockerglory, 20/1 First Street, Jilaijone, L’Eau du Sud, Onlyamatteroftime, 25/1 Asta La Pasta, Conyers Hill, Donnacha, Moveit Like Minnie, Norman Fletcher, Our Champ, 33/1 Faivoir, Ito Ditto, Punctuation, 40/1 Alvaniy, 50/1 Kaleb, Yorksea

The Betfair Hurdle will be run for a total prize fund of £155,000 in 2024 with prize money increases seen across the rest of the card with an additional £15,000 on offer in both the Grade 2 Betfair Denman Chase and Grade 2 Betfair Exchange Game Spirit Chase. These increases are part of a record prize money offering – of £7,000,000 – available at Newbury in 2024.

Discounted tickets are available for Betfair Super Saturday until Friday 2nd February at http://newbury.local with further savings available for groups of seven or more.