Racing: Festival's new prize

A NEW two-and-a-half mile handicap hurdle is being added to the Cheltenham Festival in March next year. Called the Coral Cup, the race will have prize money of more than pounds 40,000, making it the most valuable handicap hurdle at the meeting.

The contest will be run on the Wednesday of the Festival. Coral, who are backing the race, have given up sponsorship of the Coral Golden Hurdle series, which culminated in the three-mile-and- one-furlong final at the Festival.

That long distance handicap hurdle race will move to the first day of the meeting under a new sponsor, to be announced shortly. As a result there will be a handicap hurdle on each of the Cheltenham Festival days for the first time with the County Hurdle on the Thursday.