Five festival fliers who started Cheltenham in style in the Supreme Novices'

Tuesday marks four weeks before the Cheltenham roar greets the runners for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle and the start of this season's festival. We look back at five exciting runnings of the curtain-raiser

Sausalito Bay (2000)

A thrilling race to start the new millennium with five of the 15-strong field in with a shout racing to the last, including subsequent triple Gold Cup winner Best Mate.

Paul Carberry set out to make all on the Noel Meade-trained Sausalito Bay, a winner on the Flat for Ian Balding, but looked like being swallowed up on the home turn by Phardante Flyer and favourite Youlneverwalkalone.

Instead Sausalito Bay rallied and flew the last to gain a vital lead that only Best Mate, switched to race alone under the stands' rail, could make any inroads on but he was still beaten three-quarters of a length.

Like-A-Butterfly (2002)

British racegoers got a first look at the JP McManus-owned super mare Like-A-Butterfly in 2002, who was unbeaten in three bumpers and four hurdles with a Grade 1 win under each discipline in Ireland.

Unsurprisingly an Irish banker as 7-4 favourite in a field of 28, Like-A-Butterfly won but only by a hard-fought neck from Westender, with many left feeling Adamant Approach would have won had he not fallen at the last.

Captain Cee Bee (2008)

One of the most open renewals according to the betting in 2008 with 8-1 co-favourites of three but it boiled down to an exciting duel between the JP McManus-owned pair of Binocular, one of the market leaders under Sir Anthony McCoy, and Captain Cee Bee.

Captain Cee Bee: won the 2008 Supreme Novices' Hurdle for Eddie HartyCredit: Edward Whitaker

Binocular, who went on to win the Champion Hurdle two years later, looked the likelier winner when cruising into the lead after jumping the second-last.

Robert Thornton had been cajoling Captain Cee Bee along from the top of the hill but the Eddie Harty-trained star kept responding and came home the stronger up the run-in to score by two lengths.

Menorah (2010)

The 2010 running was billed as a showdown between Dunguib, winner of the previous year's Champion Bumper, and Get Me Out Of Here, but they had to give way to the tenacious Menorah, who looked the prey as the big two fancies loomed up around the home bend.

Dunguib, sent off odds-on, travelled strongly into contention as Richard Johnson shook up Menorah to lead with McCoy taking aim on Get Me Out Of Here.

While Dunguib found less than expected under pressure, Get Me Out Of Here inched closer from the last under McCoy's urgings but was still a head adrift of Menorah at the winning post.

Labaik (2017)

After the initial roar and every expectation that Willie Mullins would add another Supreme winner with joint favourite Melon, there was something of a stunned silence as they ran to the last in 2017.

The reason was the enigmatic Labaik, a 25-1 chance after refusing to start on a number of occasions, who arrived full of running around the home bend under 17-year-old Jack Kennedy and led over the last. Melon tried to rally but to no avail.

Read Lee Mottershead's report of the race

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