F EATURE JANUARY 2022
NEW Y EAR ’ S DAY AND F E S T I VAL T R I AL S DAY
Every New Year gets off to a flying start at Cheltenham with two fixtures at the Home of Jump Racing in the month of January. Ben Cox reveals what’s in store for the start of 2022…
T here are few more satisfying ways of blowing away the cobwebs and any over-exuberant Hogmanay celebrations than heading to Cheltenham on New Year’s Day. This year will be no different, with the day landing on a Saturday and the world’s Premier Beatles band, The Bootleg Beatles, performing live in The Centaur after racing. The 1 January card often provides clues for The Festival™ just over two months later and features a pair of Grade Two contests, plus competitive handicap action. The Grade Two Paddy Power Dipper
Day – the final fixture at Cheltenham before The Festival and taking place this season on Saturday 29 January 2022. The feature on Festival Trials Day is the Grade Two Paddy Power Cotswold Chase, a leading trial for the Cheltenham Gold Cup. It was inaugurated in 1980, and three horses have won the Cotswold Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup in the same season – Little Owl in 1981, Master Oats in 1995 and Looks Like Trouble in 2000. Other legends of the track to have won include See More Business, who sandwiched his 1999 Cheltenham Gold Cup success between victories in the Cotswold Chase in 1998 and 2001, while 1997 hero One Man went on to take the
illustrious roll of honour since it was first staged in 2005 at Cheltenham, with future Grade One winners The Listener, My Way de Solzen and Lostintranslation all having succeeded. Meanwhile, the Grade Two Dornan Engineering Relkeel Hurdle also takes place, having been transferred to the slot in 2016 from The International meeting in December. Staged over a distance of an extended two-and-a-half miles, its 2019 winner Midnight Shadow has gone on to prove himself something of a New Year’s Day specialist, following up by winning the Dipper Novices’ Chase exactly a year later. Later the same month is Festival Trials
Novices’ Chase over an extended two-and-a-half miles features an
For ticket and hospitality pricing and to book, head online now thejockeyclub.co.uk
30 KALENDAR
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker