The Cheltenham Champion Bumper is the newest race ran during the Festival and the only one without hurdles. The Bumper is essentially a flat race run under National Hunt rules, over a distance just exceeding two miles. Despite only having a brief history the Irish Trainer Willie Mullins already possesses a fine record in this race and his entrants could well be worth looking at this year. One statistic that is common in each running of this race is that all the past winners have been five years old.

Click here for the latest 2004 Cheltenham Festival betting.

The Martin Pipe trained favourite Liberman took the 2003 Champion Bumper and in the process gave the Champion jockey, Tony McCoy his first Festival winner of the year. After being moved to head the field three fences from the finish, Liberman displayed a great deal of resilience in holding off all challenges and was well worthy of a narrow victory. Trabolgan was the nearest challenger but was unable to overtake Liberman in the final few yards. One of the best finishing displays was by Widemouth Bay who was surprisingly switched left on the run in and could well be one to watch in the 2004 Cheltenham Festival.

Champion Bumper Results
Year	Horse	Trainer	Starting Price
2003	Liberman	M Pipe	2/1 Fav
2002	Pizarro	E O´Grady	14/1
2000	Joe Cullen	I Williams	14/1
1999	Monsignor	M Pitman	50/1
1998	Alexander Banquet	W Mullins	9/1

The first race on the final day of the Cheltenham Festival is the Triumph Hurdle.