The Chasing Excellence initiative, launched this season to enhance opportunities for Britain’s novice chasers, reached an encouraging milestone on Saturday when the Nicky Henderson-trained Lulamba landed the Grade 1 Henry VIII Novices’ Chase at Sandown.

The four-year-old made his first start over fences in the Chasing Excellence Beginners’ Chase at Exeter on Monday 17 November.

Lulamba confirmed the promise shown in his juvenile hurdle career by comfortably defeating a strong field of five which featured the Gary and Josh Moore-trained Salver, who subsequently landed the Grade 2 Esher Novices’ Chase at the Tingle Creek meeting.

Chasing Excellence races are new for this season and are designed to support the development of higher-quality chasers in Britain.

The initiative involves an increased number of weight-for-age novices’ and beginners’ Chases across this season’s race programme, run for higher prize-money values.

This change is intended to give horses the best possible opportunity to hone their jumping skills in novices’ and beginners’ weight-for-age steeplechases, while allowing higher-quality chasers a pathway to progress to Pattern races.

This is the route that Nicky Henderson has taken with Lulamba, which paid dividends with an impressive nine-and-a-half-length success in the Betfair Henry VIII Novices’ Chase.

“I thought he was outstanding, it was a lovely performance,” Henderson said of Lulamba’s win on Saturday. “He is an extraordinary horse because he is only four. At the start of the season, he had only raced over hurdles four times in his life, and we have gone novice chasing. To be doing this at such a young age, with such confidence that he has in himself, makes him a pretty rare horse to me.”

Lulamba winning the Betfair Henry VIII at Sandown

On the decision to run Lulamba in a Chasing Excellence contest at Exeter prior to testing him at the top-level, Henderson added: “It’s great that we have got novices’ chases back to a point where we can encourage chasers to come through, which is hopefully what we are doing.

“Our biggest problem has been the lack of ways to bring young horses into steeple chases. It is lovely to see one who is breaking through the system, and as a four-year-old.

“It is fantastic to have these races, and the one at Exeter was a high-class field.”

Lulamba after winning the Chasing Excellence Beginners’ Chase at Exeter

Tom Byrne, BHA’s Head of Racing and Betting, has been closely following the progress of the Chasing Excellence initiative since it was introduced at the start of the season alongside a series of changes to the Jump programme.

He said: “It was great to see Lulamba winning the first Grade 1 Novice Chase of the season, having started his campaign in a Chasing Excellence Beginners’ Chase at Exeter.

“The intention of the Chasing Excellence races is to support the development of our best novices’ chasers and offer them a platform to progress through to Pattern races. It has been pleasing to see that route supported by plenty of our trainers this season, including Nicky Henderson.

“Although we acknowledge that field sizes in some Chasing Excellence races have been modest this season, this is something we expected to a certain extent as these races are ultimately intended to support our best novice chasers developing through the season – and Lulamba’s success is an example of that.

“It was a brilliant performance on Saturday and I’m excited to see what he can achieve for the remainder of the season.”

Lulamba winning the Betfair Henry VIII at Sandown

Henderson will now be giving Lulamba a short break before his next outing, with the Kingmaker Chase at Warwick a likely target before the Cheltenham Festival.

“I would be pretty keen not to go to Kempton [at Christmas], because there was only three weeks between Exeter and Sandown, and to put him in in just under three weeks again would be a tough ask, especially for a four-year-old.

“You could say that neither race was actually very hard on him, but he sure did have a race on Saturday. Even though it looked visibly easy to him, you have got to put in maximum effort to be able to do what he did, in which case it has maximum effect on a horse.

“I would’ve thought the Kingmaker at Warwick is the obvious place to go next.”

• Find out more about the 2025/26 Jump Programme changes here.