The feature race on day two of the Cheltenham Festival is the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the premier two-mile race for steeplechasers anywhere in the game of National Hunt racing.
A Grade One with a prize fund of some £400,000, the Champion Chase takes place on the Old Course and features 13 fences with speed being the name of the game more than stamina for the most part.
Past winners of this great race, on the schedule since 1959, include Crisp, Badsworth Boy, Viking Flagship, One Man, Moscow Flyer, Azertyuiop, Master Minded, Sprinter Sacre and Altior, essentially the two-mile chasing elite.
The race was initially called the National Hunt Two-Mile Champion Chase but was renamed in 1980 and is fed by key trials the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown and the Ascot Chase among others. Many winners of this event had taken part as novices in the previous season’s Arkle Trophy.