UK Horse Racing Tips

Under normal circumstances, the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup is one of three races run at the Cheltenham Festival – the others being the the National Hunt Chase and the St James’s Place Hunters’ Chase – that are restricted solely to amateur riders.Currently scheduled as the final race on the third day of the Festival, a.k.a. St. Patrick’s Thursday, the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup was established in 1946 in memory of Ian Kay Muir, nickmamed ‘Kim’, a Royal Hussars officer who was killed in action during World War II. The name of legendary trainer Fulke Walwyn – who, at the time of writing, remains the joint-fourth most successful trainer at the Cheltenham Festival with 40 winners to his name – was added to the race title in 1991, following his death in February that year.

The Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup is a handicap steeplechase, nowadays run over three-and-a-quarter miles, and 21 fences, on the New Course at Cheltenham. The race is open to horses aged five yeats and upwards and is currently worth £75,000 in total prize money. Notable winners down the years include Nicolaus Silver (1961) and Ballabriggs (2010), both of whom subsequently won the Grand National at Aintree, and Cool Ground (1989) and Inothewayurthinkin (2024), both of whom subsequently won the Cheltenham Gold Cup itself.

Four decades after his death, in 1981, Fred Rimmell, remains the leading trainer in the history of the

Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup, having saddled Mighty Fine (1951), Gay Monarch II (1955) and Double Negative (1977) in addition to Nicolaus Silver. Jamie Codd, one of the finest amateur riders of his generation, is the leading jockey.also with four winners, namely Character Building (2009), Junior (2011), The Package (2015) and Cause Of Causes (2016).

The Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle is a Grade 2 novices’ hurdle run over 2 miles at Kempton Park in late February. Open to horses aged four years and upwards who, at the start of the current season, have yet to win a race over hurdles, the race was inaugurated, as a Listed event, in 1988 before being promoted to Grade 2 status three years later.

Nicky Henderson, who saddled the inaugural winner, Over The Counter (1988), was also responsible for Flown (1992), Kimanicky (1996), Premier Generation (1999), Shatabdi (2007), Forgotten Voice (2013), Days of Heaven (2015) and River Wylde (2017) and is the leading trainer in the history of the race. Interestingly, Hampshire trainer Chris Gordon has won two of the last three renewals, courtesy of Highway One O Two (2020) and Aucunrisque (2022).

Aside from Flown, who won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival on his next start, notable winners of the Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle include Granville Again (1991), who won the Champion Hurdle two years later, having fallen at the second-last flight when holding every chance in 1992, and Sire De Grugy (2011), who won the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2014.

Just one of the last ten renewals of the Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle has attracted more than nine runners but, despite mainly single-figure fields, just three favourites, two of which were odds-on, have won in that period. That said, all ten winners featured in the first three in the betting, so the Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle is clearly not a race for rank outsiders either. Recent trends suggest that likely winners are five or six years old, are officially rated at least 130 and have winning form within the last six weeks or so. Previous experience of Kempton and winning form in Graded races, of any description, are less important.

Kempton Park racecourse, in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, is best known for its Winter Festival, which features three Grade 1 races, namely the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase, the Christmas Hurdle and King George VI Chase. The last-named has been a fixture of the Boxing Day programme since 1947 and, in terms of prestige, is second only to the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Since World War II, some titans of the staying chasing division, including Arkle, Desert Orchid and Kauto Star, have won both races. That said, the chase course at Kempton is right-handed, practically flat and has relatively easy fences, making it a completely different test from the New Course at Cheltenham, which is left-handed, undulating and has notoriously stiff fences.

Having survived the threat of demolition, when the Jockey Club scaled down its proposed housing development programme, Kempton Park racecourse also stages 90 or so Flat fixtures throughout the year. In 2005, the course was closed for nearly a year for the construction of a floodlit Polytrack course, which was, in fact, the first right-handed all-weather track in the country.

The Flat course consists of two oval loops, with races over five, nine and ten furlongs staged on the sharper inner loop and those over all other distances staged on the outer loop. The principal Flat races at Kempton are the September Stakes, run over a mile and a half and open to horses aged three years and upwards, and the Sirenia Stakes, run over six furlongs and open to two-year-olds only. Both are Group 3 contests staged in early September.

I wrote an article a while back titled: What Happened to Nick Mordin? It’s one of my best post [according to Google] and top ranked No 1 on the said search engine. The article only came into existence because I had a reader contact me asking if I could forward Nick Mordin’s contact details.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be of help.

So where is Nick Mordin?

No one knows.

Nick Mordin has always been a respected horse racing journalist and author, someone I’d always read alongside free bets uk.. In fact here are just a few books he has written over the years:

Betting for a Living, published by Aesculus Press Limited (1992)

A book where Mordin details how he won a £1000 a month from bookmakers just betting on week-ends and public holidays.

The Winning Look, published by Aesculus Press Limited (1994)

The sequel to Betting For A Living. Here Mordin explores with a bit of intelligent observation of horses in the paddock can help punters make a profit and form betting strategies.

Mordin On Time, published by Rowton Press (1996)

This is something of a collectors book with first editions going for £80. In this book Mordin attempts to answer the fundamental question of all punters: ‘Which horse is the fastest?’ He was taking sectional timings long before American books on speed ratings were published. This remains the only book in the world which allows readers to construct their own speed rating wherever they live.

Winning Without Thinking: A Guide to Horse Racing Betting Systems, published by Aesculus Press Limited (2002)

A book resulting from over 30,000 hours of researching race results over the years. This publication aims to uncover the principles that govern the betting market and racing results themselves. He shares the results of systems from himself, academics & professional gamblers. It’s a fascinating read.

Personally, I own Betting for a Living, The Winning Look & Mordin On Time. All excellent reads. I will be purchasing the other copy and writing a few articles about my findings.

Nick Mordin has always been respected for his search finding strategies and systems to make your betting pay. I’m sure many readers enjoyed the Sporting Life: The Weekender, which is released every Wednesday. As the blurb says: ‘It is designed to look at the best bets for British & Irish racing for the week ahead, with a particular focus on the biggest betting races of the weekend.’

I loved the good, old days when Nick Mordin’s Systems, often taking a double-page spread to get his valuable information across. In fact, it was one of my brother’s studies which put our research in the limelight when Mordin wrote: In a Class of their Own: How to Spot Top-Notch Two-year-olds.

It was published May 14^th 1994.

I’m not sure how many years Mordin worked for The Weekender but he was very well received.

If you know where Nick Mordin resides these days we would love to hear more. I for one miss his knowledge and insight, especially those systems.