Relkeel Hurdle Relkeel Hurdle The Relkeel Hurdle is a Grade 2 National Hunt hurdle race in Great Britain which is open to horses aged four years or older. It is run on the New Course at Cheltenham over a distance of about 2 miles and 4½ furlongs , and during its running there are ten hurdles to be jumped. The race is scheduled to take place each year on New Year's Day. The event is named after Relkeel, a three-time winner of Cheltenham's Bula Hurdle in the late 1990s. The Relkeel Hurdle was given Grade 2 status in 2006. The race was
100 metres hurdles run. From 1926 until 1968 on only the 80 m distance was run. For the 80 m race women had to clear eight hurdles placed at a distance of 8 metres from each other and a height of 76.2 cm. Just like with the men's races, until 1935 no more than three hurdles could be knocked over (or the runner was disqualified) and records were only officially registered if the runner had cleared all her hurdles clean. In 1935, this rule was abandoned, and L-shaped hurdles were introduced that fell over forward easily and greatly reduced the risk of injury