Cheltenham Festival: Grand Annual Chase

The Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase Challenge Cup is a Grade Three, Class One handicap Chase race run for horses aged five years old and upwards in England at Cheltenham racecourse during the Festival held in mid-march. The race is run over a distance of two miles and 110 yards with 14 fences for the horses to negotiate and the total prize fund is £85,000, with around £48,000 going to the winner. The race used to be run on a Thursday, but moved to Friday in 2005 when the Festival was rearranged with an extra day added on to include more races. In 2006, the contest was named after Johnny Henderson, father of racehorse trainer Nicky Henderson. Nicky Henderson won the race that year with Greenhope, who was a 20/1 shot. The race is fiercely competitive and it is one of the strongest two-mile handicaps in the calendar, having been won in the past by the likes of Edredon Bleu (1998), who went on to become one of Britain's top chasers. The race is generally won by a well-fancied horse. Four favourites have obliged in the last ten years with seven horses winning with single figure odds in the same time frame. It also seems to be an advantage to carry a light weight as eight of the last ten winners have carried less than eleven stone to victory. Andreas, trained by Paul Nicholls and ridden by jockey Robert Thornton is the most recent winner of the race.