The Mares’ Hurdle is a Grade 1 race over about 2 miles 4 furlongs on the Tuesday of the Festival. It’s the championship for female hurdlers and has been won by some outstanding mares including Honeysuckle, Lossiemouth and Annie Power (who fell at the last when odds-on in 2015 before the race gained Grade 1 status).
Recent Winners
| Year | Winner | Trainer | Jockey | Age | SP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Lossiemouth | W P Mullins | P Townend | 6 | 4/6 |
| 2024 | Lossiemouth | W P Mullins | P Townend | 5 | 8/13 |
| 2023 | Honeysuckle | Henry de Bromhead | R Blackmore | 9 | 13/4 |
| 2022 | Marie’s Rock | N Henderson | N de Boinville | 7 | 18/1 |
| 2021 | Black Tears | Denise Foster | J W Kennedy | 7 | 11/1 |
| 2020 | Honeysuckle | Henry de Bromhead | R Blackmore | 6 | 13/4 |
| 2019 | Roksana | Dan Skelton | H Skelton | 7 | 10/1 |
| 2018 | Benie Des Dieux | W P Mullins | R Walsh | 7 | 9/2 |
| 2017 | Apple’s Jade | Gordon Elliott | B J Cooper | 5 | 7/2 |
| 2016 | Vroum Vroum Mag | W P Mullins | R Walsh | 7 | 4/6 |
Key Trends
Age profile: Seven-year-olds have the most wins with 6 from 11 renewals. Five-year-olds have won twice, six-year-olds twice, and there’s one nine-year-old winner (Honeysuckle’s farewell in 2023).
Favourite record: The favourite has won 4 of 11 (36%). They’ve placed 8 times from 12 total favourite runners. The average favourite SP of about 5/4 shows how short-priced these favourites often are — and they still get beaten a third of the time.
Trainers: Mullins leads with 5 wins from 32 runners (16%). De Bromhead has 2 from 9 (22%). Elliott has 1 from 6, Skelton 1 from 7, Henderson 1 from 12.
Going: Good to Soft is the most common ground (6 editions). Four editions were on Soft and one on Heavy. No Good ground renewal in our sample.
What the Data Says
The Mares’ Hurdle has been dominated by a handful of brilliant mares. Lossiemouth won the last two renewals (2024-25), Honeysuckle won in 2020 and 2023 (she ran in the Champion Hurdle in 2021 and 2022), and Vroum Vroum Mag took the 2016 edition. The recurring theme is that genuinely top-class mares return and win this race.
Mullins’ 5 wins from 32 runners and his 13 placings (41% place rate) confirm his dominance. He tends to run multiple entries and still places frequently.
Marie’s Rock at 18/1 in 2022 and Black Tears at 11/1 in 2021 show that upsets are possible when the star mare is absent or past her peak. In years without an obvious champion, this race opens up.
The average winning OR of 150 is high, confirming the quality of the race. The average winning SP of about 6/1 is dragged up by those two bigger-priced winners — most renewals produce a winner at single-figure odds.
Henderson’s 1 win from 12 (Marie’s Rock) is a bit below par for his usual standards, though it’s a relatively small sample in a mares-only race where his options are more limited.
All Cheltenham Festival races are run at Cheltenham racecourse. See our Cheltenham course guide for trainer and jockey statistics, going analysis, and betting angles.