The annual Cheltenham Festival’s Hunters Chase announced a tribute to Princess Anne

Princess Anne, Princess Royal attends QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot Racecourse

Credit : Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty

 

Princess Anne is being honored in a unique way.

The annual Cheltenham Festival’s Hunters Chase will be renamed after Princess Anne’s royal title, the horse racing venue announced this week.

Popularly known as the “Amateurs’ Gold Cup,” the race covers the same three-and-a-quarter-mile track as the prestigious Cheltenham Gold Cup, a brutal test of stamina and jumping ability with 22 fences and a grueling uphill climb. The newly named “Princess Royal Challenge Cup Open Hunters’ Steeple Chase” will take place on Friday, March 13, immediately following the blue riband event.

“The Hunters’ Chase at The Festival is a contest which recognises and celebrates the very origins of our great sport,” Cheltenham Racecourse CEO Guy Lavender said in a March 1 news release announcing the change. “We therefore feel it is very appropriate to stage it under the name of Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal – an outstanding all-round equestrian who has excelled in a wide range of disciplines.”

An accomplished rider, Princess Anne won individual gold at the European Eventing Championships in 1971 and represented Great Britain during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, the first British royal to do so. She competed in the equestrian three-day event with her mother Queen Elizabeth’s horse, Goodwill, placing 24th.

Mark Phillips helps Princess Anne onto her horse, Goodwill, during the show jumping section of the Three Day Eventing at the Montreal Olympic Games.

Mark Phillips helps Princess Anne onto her horse, Goodwill, during the show jumping section of the Three Day Eventing at the Montreal Olympic Games.S&G/PA Images/Getty

Anne’s daughter, Zara Tindall, is also an equestrian and won a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics, following in the footsteps of both her mother and father, Mark Phillips, who won a team gold medal in eventing at the 1972 Olympics and a team silver medal in 1988.

The Cheltenham Festival race bearing the Princess Royal’s name is the second at the four-day event to honor a member of the royal family. The two-mile Champion Chase was renamed the “Queen Mother Champion Chase” in 1980 to celebrate Princess Anne’s grandmother, the Queen Mother’s, 80th birthday.

The National Hunt Chase, run on the festival’s opening day and renamed for Princess Anne last year, will return to its former name, The National Hunt Challenge Cup Novices’ Handicap Chase, Cheltenham Racecourse said.