The Sefton Novices’ Hurdle is a Grade 1 novices’ hurdle race run over 3 miles and 149 yards on the Mildmay Course at Aintree in early April. Open to horses aged four years and upwards, the race was inaugurated, as the White Satin Novices’ Hurdle, in 1988, before being renamed – after the village of Sefton, approximately four miles northwest of Aintree Racecourse – five years later.

The White Satin Novices’ Hurdle was awarded Grade 2 status in 1991 and, under its present title, promoted to Grade 1 status. It is currently scheduled for the second day of the three-day Grand National Festival, a.k.a. Ladies’ Day.

The Sefton Novices’ Hurdle is an obvious target for horses that previously contested the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle – a similar Grade 1 race run over the slightly shorter distance of 2 miles, 7 furlongs and 213 yards – at the Cheltenham Festival, although the last horse to win both races was At Fishers Cross. Nicky Henderson, who saddled the inaugural winner of the White Satin Novices’ Hurdle, Rustle, way back in 1988, has since added three more – Beat That (2014), Santini (2018) and Champ (2019) – to his tally and is the leading trainer in the history of the race.

Predicting the result of any race, let alone a novices’ hurdle race, that is many months away is nigh on impossible. However, prospective ante-post punters could so well on some promising youngsters from Seven Barrows, including the unbeaten Firestep, who was prevented from running in 2022 by a series of ‘niggly problems’, but could yet take high order in the novice hurdling division. According to Nicky Henderson, ‘It might be a blessing Firestep didn’t run as he’s a massive, big horse now.’