CHELTENHAM ROUND-UP

NICKY HENDERSON-trained Epatante and Theatre Glory have both been supplemented to the line-up for Tuesday’s Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle.

It cost £4,599 to add each mare at yesterday’s penultimate declaration stage for races on the opening day of the Festival. Epatante, the 2020 Champion Hurdler, and Theatre Glory are due to take on Honeysuckle, winner of the Champion Hurdle for the last two years. Epatante and Honeysuckle feature among the 12 entries for the Champion Hurdle but are expected to miss that race unless something prevents the two principal big hopes Constitution Hill and State Man taking part.

n THE number of jump jockeys who picked up bans in the third week of new rules has dropped to nine. In the first two weeks of the regulations 20 and 12 rides were sanctioned respectively. The new whip rules will be under particular scrutiny next week with stakes high for jockeys and penalties for serious breaches now including disqualification of their mounts.

n RESEARCH conducted by the University of Gloucestershire has estimated that the four-day Festival was worth an estimated £274million to the local economy last year. The figure has almost trebled from the £100m it was said to be in 2016.