Cheltenham Festival 2022: Champion Hurdle day – live!

LIVE – Updated at 13:06

Fans are back as the Cheltenham Festival roars into action with the Champion Hurdle the highlight on day one.

1:30pm – Supreme Novices Hurdle Odds

Last year’s Festival was something of a triumph considering there were no spectators there, and that was mostly down to the heroics of Rachael Blackmore and a demonstration of the high quality racing in National Hunt. This year will be very different, and the pictures of Guinness being supped and bacon sandwiches inhaled are already coming in. It’s been a very long, and strange wait to return to normal. Those of us there two years ago felt like we were a) in the eye of the coronavirus storm, b) trying our best to ignore the coronavirus storm and c) living the last days of Pompeii. Cheltenham 2020 became symbolic of the UK’s slow reaction to the gathering storm, and having been there had a certain stigma attached to it, something akin to a loss of innocence. Last year undid some of the damage and a safe passage through this year’s four days might do the same. Full stadiums and concert venues are part of life again, and so Cheltenham takes its turn.

Another live chance for the home team in a Grade One – the last one for some time, quite possibly – as Edwardstone attempts to shift his dominance of the two-mile novice chasers on this side of the Irish Sea up a gear by beating the best from the other side too. He has been impressively consistent this season, running to almost exactly the same, very high, rating for each of his last three wins, a Grade One and a pair of Grade Twos. He is trading at around 11-4 to give Alan King his first Festival winner since Uxizandre took the Champion Chase in 2015, with Riviere D’Etel and Blue Lord, runner-up and winner