Celebration Chase
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The Celebration Chase is a Grade 2 National Hunt chase in the United Kingdom for five-year-old and above horses. It is run over a distance of 2 miles (3,219 metres) at Sandown Park Racecourse in April. There are thirteen fences to be jumped in the race.
The race has its origins in 2001 when the Cheltenham Festival was cancelled due to the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth crisis. Replacement championship races were run at Sandown Park's late April meeting to provide opportunities for horses whose Cheltenham Festival targets had been cancelled. The replacement race for the Queen Mother Champion Chase was the ladbrokescasino.com Championship Chase, a Grade 1 race won by Edredon Bleu.
In 2002 the race was run as the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Celebration Chase, in memory of the Queen Mother who had died on March 30th and who was a frequent racegoer at Sandown Park. The race was downgraded to a Class B race but still attracted a good field of chasers. In 2002 and 2003 it was sponsored by the attheraces TV channel and in 2004 by Betfred bookmakers.
The race was upgraded to Grade 2 status in 2005 with the shortened title of the Celebration Chase. It continued to be sponsored by Betfred until Bet365 took over the sponsorship in 2008.
[edit] Winners
| Year |
Winner |
Age |
Jockey |
Trainer |
| 2001 | Edredon Bleu | 9 | Tony McCoy | Henrietta Knight |
| 2002 | Cenkos | 8 | Barry Geraghty | Paul Nicholls |
| 2003 | Seebald | 8 | Tony McCoy | Martin Pipe |
| 2004 | Cenkos | 10 | Barry Geraghty | Paul Nicholls |
| 2005 | Well Chief | 6 | Timmy Murphy | Martin Pipe |
| 2006 | River City | 9 | Tom Doyle | Noel Chance |
| 2007 | Dempsey | 9 | Timmy Murphy | Carl Llewellyn |
| 2008 | Andreas | 8 | Ruby Walsh | Paul Nicholls |
