KIM MUIR CHALLENGE CUP INFO
Date: Thursday (5:30) , March 16, 2023
Type: National Hunt Steeplechase
Distance: 3 Miles 2 Furlongs
Age Of The Horse: 5 Years and Older
On this page we will cover 2022 Kim Muir Challenge Cup runners and favourites, past winners, stats and trends, as well as best betting offers for this-year race.
This is a tough handicap and thus we have to back potential as much as proven ability in the hope of finding a horse who could well be ahead of the assessor and therefore well weighted.
Tips coming soon
It’s very much advised that, without allowing yourself to be too tempted, you keep a sharp eye on all of the Cheltenham-specific offers put out by major online bookmakers in advance of this season’s Festival.
Last year offers were so generous that they are said to have contributed to an overall fall in gambling yield in Britain but as competition is so fierce, they are likely to be just as lavish this time around.
The last race on day three of the 2023 Cheltenham Festival is the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup. The race is a handicap chase event for amateur jockeys only over 3 miles 2 furlongs, featuring twenty-one fences on the New Course and worth £70,000 in prize money. It takes place on Thursday March 16th at 5.30PM.
This race was inaugurated in 1946 and has been on the Cheltenham schedule ever since, and though the name of legendary trainer Fulke Walwyn was added to the title back in 1991, the race has always been colloquially known as the Kim Muir.
The Kim Muir Chase 2022 will be one of two races at the Festival saved for amateur jockeys only but that is not a fact that puts punters off, betting turnover on this race still going into the millions of pounds as they and top trainers alike still target the race heavily.
The most successful trainer in this race, Fred Rimell, is from a bygone age but the most successful jockey is very much going strong. Jamie Codd has taken the Kim Muir four times to date, rides Cheltenham beautifully and is likely to be given a strong ride from JP McManus so keep a good eye on his mount.
The better stats surround the horses themselves though with the below three categories offering us some understanding on what it takes to win the Kim Muir.
7 out of the last 10 winners were placed at least twice that season heading into the Kim Muir, with the three exceptions being two Jamie Codd rides and a 13/2 favourite that was clearly expected to run well regardless.
9 of our ten have run at least three times before this race, meaning while a heavy season wouldn’t be advised, horses in this race need to be fully match-fit and so having had three or ideally even four races before this one during the season will be seen as ideal.
The Package, a Jamie Codd ride with no real form to speak of going into the event, is an exception but all of the other nine winners were aged 7-9 and this appears to be ideal for a Kim Muir type.
Only two favourites have won this race in the last ten years, but that is not to say winners of the Kim Muir have been impossible to find for punters. With the exception of 40/1 shot Domesday Book, the other nine winners have an average SP of only 8/1, with odds having ranged from 10/3 to 14/1 which is an encouragingly tight grouping.
The winner it would seem is very likely to come from a group of horses priced up at 10/1 or less based on recent times which should make the process of narrowing the field down that much easier.
It’s very early days for Kim Muir betting at the moment, only one firm even offering ante post odds at the time of writing. Prices are relatively generous though and so small each-way bets on the above two horses could yet pay dividends, but it’s when we get to March that things really kick off.
Final entries for this race are revealed on Tuesday March 10th, the first day of the Festival, and at that point we’ll know the final weights, the each-way terms and of course the likely underfoot conditions giving us a better chance to give more accurate win and each-way Kim Muir Chase tips.
This is a classic old race, but it’s in the last ten winners we’ll glean the most information.
An almost full field of 23 runners went to post for the 2019 Kim Muir Chase with Gordon Elliott’s Measureofmydreams an extremely strongly backed 3/1 favourite as the huge Cheltenham crowd looked to land one more gamble before the end of the day.
There was an air of expectation around a potential return to the winner’s enclosure for veteran trainer Ted Walsh though as his 6/1 chance Any Second Now was fair from unpopular in the ring, top amateur Derek O’Connor taking the ride.
It was indeed to be their day too as the seven-year-old bounded up the hill to take the Kim Muir by 3¾ lengths from Kilfilum Cross (7/1), providing yet another Cheltenham winner for leading owner JP McManus.