A history of Cheltenham Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winners

Discover which famous horses, jockeys, and trainers have won the iconic Supreme Novices' Hurdle over the years.

The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle is traditionally the first race competed at the Cheltenham Festival each year. This makes it a particular favourite with the crowd, with the noise from spectators during the race’s opening moments dubbed the Cheltenham Roar.

Horses older than four years old are allowed to compete for their share of a £150,000 purse, so long as they’ve not previously won a hurdle event prior to the current National Hunt season. But which horses have won the event in the past?

Our guide will recap the last decade of Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winners, as well as highlighting the most successful competitors in the race’s rich history. Read on for all you need to know about the best Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winners of all time.

Who are the last ten Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winners?

As of 2025, Kopek Des Bordes is the most recent winning horse in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. He was trained by Willie Mullins, with two-time winner and Betway ambassador Paul Townend as his jockey. Here’s a quick recap of the last decade of results: 

Who are the most notable horses in Supreme Novices’ Hurdle history?

While many of the Cheltenham Festival’s biggest races have had multiple-time winners, due to the nature of this being a novices’ race, no horse has won more than one Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

Constitution Hill

Trained by Nicky Henderson, Constitution Hill is considered one of the strongest hurdlers of the modern era, if not all time. After earning his first Grade 1 win in the Tolworth Novices’ Hurdle in 2022, he would enter the same year’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle as the join favourite, with winning odds of 9/4.

He would go on to win the race in one of the most emphatic victories the event had ever seen, finishing an incredible twenty-two lengths ahead of his opponents, which included the previously unbeaten Jonbon. Constitution Hill would later win the Champion Hurdle in 2023, where legendary jockey Tony McCoy would describe him as “the horse of a generation”.

Golden Cygnet

The winner of the 1978 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, Golden Cygnet, was responsible for one of the most impressive victories in the race’s history. After starting as the 4/5 favourite, he took a considerable lead over the rest of the competition towards the end of the race, finishing 15 lengths ahead of the runner-up.

Golden Cygnet was described by Vincent O’Brien, the most successful trainer in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle’s early history, as “the best hurdler [he’d] ever seen”. Unfortunately, his career was cut tragically short after he was fatally injured during the Scottish Champion Hurdle, also in 1978. This meant his career lasted just five months, during which he only lost his final race.

Altior

Although he started his career as a National Hunt Flat racer, Altior ended up becoming one of the most prominent hurdlers of the mid-2010s, before ending his career as a steeplechaser. His first ever Cheltenham race was the 2016 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, which he started as the second favourite with odds of 4/1, before eventually winning by seven lengths.

Altior’s win gave Nico de Boinville his first victory in the event, where he would eventually become a three-time winner. It also gave trainer Nicky Henderson his third victory, and his first since the 1990s. The two would go on to form a successful partnership, which yielded two more wins in the 2020s.

Douvan

After a second-place debut, Douvan rebounded with a win in the 2015 Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle at Punchestown. Two months later, he made his Cheltenham debut in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, winning his first Grade 1 National Hunt race, and earning jockey Ruby Walsh and trainer Willie Mullins their fifth and fourth wins, respectively.

Starting as the 2/1 favourite, Douvan didn’t take the lead until the closing moments of the race, slowly pulling ahead from the third last hurdle onwards. He eventually claimed a victory with a four and a half-length lead, with Shaneshill finishing as the runner-up.

Who are the most successful trainers in Supreme Novices’ Hurdle history?

Trainers are essential in helping a promising horse reach their full potential, and it’s important to highlight their successes. These are the trainers who have raised the most winners in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle:

Vincent O’Brien

The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle as we know it today was technically created in the 1970s, but the race was originally known as the Gloucestershire Hurdle, featuring two or three separate divisions each year. During this era, Vincent O’Brien dominated the competition, training a record-setting 10 winners throughout the 1950s.

Many of these wins came from a prolific partnership with jockey Tommy Burns, who claimed seven wins in just four years due to the event’s old format. Nowadays, O’Brien’s record is separated from the trainers whose horses competed since the event’s modernisation, but his influence on the race is still felt today, and he deserves a mention in the history books.

Other trainers with multiple wins prior to the introduction of new rules include Fulke Walwyn, Fred Rimell, and Bob Turnell. For the sake of fairness, however, we’ll highlight modern trainers for our remaining examples.

Willie Mullins

As the best trainer in the history of Cheltenham, it comes as little surprise that Willie Mullins would rank as one of the top trainers in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle as well. He has trained eight winning horses over the last several decades, earning his first victory with Tourist Attraction in 1995. He later found success with Ebaziyan in 2007, but it wasn’t until the 2010s that Mullins truly started to dominate the race.

Between 2013 and 2015, Mullins’ horses (Champagne Fever, Vautour, and Douvan) won the race at three consecutive Cheltenham Festivals. Further wins with Klassical Dream (2019), Appreciate It (2021), and Kopek Des Bordes (2025) would cement Mullins’ legacy as the best modern trainer in the event.

Nicky Henderson

Since the removal of separate divisions, trainers with multiple winning horses in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle have been few and far between. Nicky Henderson ranks as the trainer with the second-most winners since the rules change in 1972, having earned five victories, but the length of his career is perhaps the most impressive part of this feat.

Henderson’s first winner was River Ceiriog in 1986, followed by a second win with Flown in 1992. From then on, he would have to wait a massive 24 years for another taste of victory, when Nico de Boinville rode Altior to a 2016 win. Since then, de Boinville has won the race on two more of Henderson’s horses: Shishkin in 2020, and Constitution Hill in 2022.

Paul Nicholls

While Paul Nicholls’ two wins may not seem as impressive as some of his contemporaries, it’s his partnership with Cheltenham legend Ruby Walsh that earns him a place on our list. Walsh is the most successful rider in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle’s modern history, and his first two victories in the event were thanks to Nicholls’ horses.

In 2006, the pair led five-year-old Noland to a win, marking Walsh’s ninth career Cheltenham victory. Then, five years later, they would both become two-time victors after Al Ferof finished in first place.

Who are the most successful jockeys in Supreme Novices’ Hurdle history?

Of course, no horse could win the race without a skilled jockey to guide them to victory. Here are some of the most successful riders in the history of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle:

Tommy Burns

The most successful jockey of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle’s earlier years is unquestionably Tommy Burns. Back when the event featured multiple divisions, he won seven races throughout the 1950s, thanks to a fruitful partnership with legendary trainer Vincent O’Brien.

He won at least one of the races each year between 1955 and 1959, earning him the longest winning streak in the event’s history. While he isn’t typically formally ranked as the most successful Supreme Novices’ Hurdle jockey of all time due to changes to the rules, his run of dominance isn’t one to be overlooked.

Ruby Walsh

Irish jockey Ruby Walsh is one of the most successful Cheltenham winners of all time, having led the festival in wins 11 times across his career. He has won 59 races at the event, including six Supreme Novices’ Hurdles, making him the most prolific champion of the race since its modern era began in 1972.

Walsh’s first two victories came on horses trained by Nicky Henderson: Noland in 2006, and Al Ferof in 2011. He then began riding Willie Mullins’ horses, which led to a three year hot streak of wins between 2013 and 2015 (with Champagne Fever, Vautour, and Douvan). His final win came in 2019, when he finished in first place on Klassical Dream.

Nico de Boinville

As Ruby Walsh’s grasp on the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle began to loosen, Nico de Boinville rose to prominence as one of his most promising opponents. He ended Walsh’s winning streak with his first Supreme Novices’ Hurdle victory in 2016, when Altior finished first. Then, in the 2020s, he would claim his second and third victories in 2020 (Shishkin) and 2022 (Constitution Hill).

De Boinville’s wins also ended a 24-year drought for his horses’ trainer, Nicky Henderson, who hadn’t won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle since the 1990s. Thanks to de Boinville’s three wins, Henderson now ranks as one of the most successful trainers of the race’s modern era.

Paul Townend

Since the retirement of Ruby Walsh in 2019, Paul Townend has become the No. 1 jockey for Willie Mullins, finding success in major races across the British and Irish racing calendar. On top of his two Cheltenham Gold Cup wins and a Grand National win in 2023, he’s a two-time Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner, as well as the reigning champion of the race.

The seven-time Irish jump racing Champion Jockey earned his first win at the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle in 2021, when Appreciate It became the first seven-year-old winner of the race in more than a decade. He later repeated this success in 2025, leading Kopek Des Bordes to victory in 2025.

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