Category: Questions

The most valuable steeplechase of its kind in Britain, the Cheltenham Gold Cup is, for many, the highlight not just of the Cheltenham Festival, but of the whole National Hunt season. The race is run over three miles and two-and-a-half miles, and 22 notoriously stiff fences, on the stamina-laden New Course at Prestbury Park and provides a thorough examination of the prowess of any staying steeplechaser.

For the connections to many such horses, to even be in the reckoning for race of the calibre of the Cheltenham Gold Cup is a privilege and actually winning it remains, as pioneering jockey Rachael Blackmore out it, an “impossible dream”. Spare a thought, then, for those horses that are beaten by narrow margins in the ‘Blue Riband’ event because, as connections of On His Own (beaten a short-head in 2014) and Santini (beaten a neck in 2019) will probably acknowledge, it must be an agonising experience.

Of course, neither On His Own nor Santini ever won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but the horse that was beaten a short-head not once, but twice, did manage to add his name to the roll of honour at the fourth time of asking. The horse in question was The Fellow, trained in France by Francois Doumen and ridden on all four Gold Cup attempts by Adam Kondrat. In 1991, The Fellow was sent off at a relatively unfancied 28/1, but nonetheless came within a whisker of beating Garrison Savannah. The following season, he returned to the Cheltenham Festival off a win in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day, but was again beat a short-head, by Cool Ground.

Until fairly recently, the answer to that question would have been the traditional “four miler”, the National Hunt Challenge Cup, which until 2020 was run over 3 miles, 7 furlongs and 147 yards on the Old Course. However, following a contentious renewal in 2019, when only four of the 18 runners finished on the prevailing soft ground and three jockeys were suspended for riding “contrary to the horse’s welfare”, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) reviewed the distance and eligibility criteria of the race. The suspensions were subsequently quashed, but the distance of the National Hunt Challenge Cup was shortened to 3 miles 5 furlongs and 201 yards from 2020 onwards.

Thus, the oldest race run at the Festival is the longest no more, with that distinction belonging to the Cross Country Chase, which was inaugurated in 2005 and has been sponsored since 2009 by Speyside whisky distillery Glenfarclas. As the title suggests, the race is the only one run on the Cross Country Course at Cheltenham during the Festival and is currently scheduled as the fourth race on the second day, dubbed ‘Style Wednesday’. The Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase is run over 3 miles, 6 furlongs and 37 yards – or, in other words, 56 yards further than the revised National Hunt Challenge Cup – and a total of 32 distinctive obstacles akin to those found in open countryside. Runners must negotiate banks, ditches, hedges and even a Grand National-style fence.

Run over 2 miles, 4 furlongs and 56 yards on the New Course at Prestbury Park, Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle is open to horses aged four years and upwards and, as the title suggests, restricted to young, inexperienced conditional jockeys. The eponymous Martin Pipe was, of course, the force majeure in National Hunt racing for twenty years or more, winning the trainers’ title a record 15 times between 1988–89 and 2004–05, including 10 in a row in the last decade of his career, which was curtailed by ill health.

Currently scheduled as the seventh and final race on the fourth day of the Cheltenham Festival, a.k.a. Gold Cup Day, the race is a fairly recent addition to the programme as recently as 2009, when the racing schedule underwent significant. In its short history, no horse or jockey has won the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle, but it should come as no real surprise to learn that the most successful trainer, so far, is Willie Mullins, who has ruled the roost at the Cheltenham Festival for the last decade or so. All told Mullins has saddled a record 94 winners at the March showpiece and has been crowned top trainer 10 times since 2011, including the last five years in a row. Indeed, in 2022, he surpassed his own record for most wins at a single Festival when saddling ten winners, including five on the final day.

As far as the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle is concerned, Mullins opened his account with subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Sir Des Champs in 2011 and his since carried off the lion’s share of the now £75,000 prize money on three other occasions. His three other winners were Don Poli in 2014, Killultagh Vic in 2015 and Galopin Des Champs, who subsequently won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, in 2021.

The Cathcart Challenge Cup was inaugurated in 1938 and named in memory of Frederick Cathcart, former Chairman of Cheltenham Racecourse, who died four years earlier, but was responsible for the creation on the Cheltenham Gold Cup, as a steeplechase, in 1924 and the Champion Hurdle in 1927. The race was always a steeplechase, but was run in various guises down the years, including an abortive stint as the Cathcart Champion Hunters’ Chase between 1975 and 1977. Most recently, though, it was a Grade 2 contest, run over 2 miles and 5 furlongs on the New Course at Cheltenham and open to first- and second-season steeplechasers.

The Cathcart Challenge Cup was run for the last time on March 18, 2004 and won by the six-year-old Our Armageddon, trained by Richard Guest and ridden by Larry McGrath, who made all the running to beat Iris Royal by 2½ lengths. The following year, the race was replaced by the Festival Trophy, initially sponsored by the Daily Telegraph, which was open to steeplechasers at all levels of experience. In 2006, Ryanair took over the sponsorship and, two years later, the newly-titled Ryanair Chase was promoted to Grade 1 status; alongside the Stayers’ Hurdle, the Ryanair Chase is one of the feature races on day three of the Cheltenham Festival.

Like its successor, the Cathcart Challenge Cup was a ‘championship’ race over a distance intermediate between that of the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. For the record, since World War II, the legendary Fred Winter was the leading trainer with seven wins, courtesy of Soloning (1972), Soothsayer (1974), Roller Coaster (1979), Dramatist (1982), Observe (1983) and Half Free (1986 and 1987).

Bred at the Gerrardstown House Stud in Dunshauglin, County Meath, Our Conor was initially campaigned on the Flat by leading Irish jumps trainer Dessie Hughes, winning twice, at Roscommon and Naas, as a three-year-old, in the summer of 2012. Sent over obstacles that autumn, he made a winning debut in a maiden hurdle, again at Naas, justifying odds-on favouritism with an easy, 8½-length victory. He did so again in a Grade 3 juvenile hurdle at Fairyhouse the following month and, the following February, made a seamless transition to the highest level with a comfortable, 5-length defeat of the hitherto unbeaten Diakali, trained by Willie Mullins, in the Grade 1 Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Fairyhouse.

Our Conor subsequently arrived at the Cheltenham Festival boasting a 3-3 record over hurdles and, consequently, was sent off 4/1 joint second favourite for the Triumph Hurdle. Once again, he more than justified his market position, effortlessly drawing clear between the final two flights to win, impressively, by 15 lengths. Unsurprisingly, he was promoted to favouritism for the 2014 Champion Hurdle and, a few days later, sold to leading owner Barry Connell, for an undisclosed sum, although Connell declared himself ‘delighted to have the opportunity to buy him’.

The change of ownership meant that regular jockey Bryan Cooper, who had ridden Our Conor to all four wins over hurdles, was replaced by Danny Mullins, who was retained by Connell. Thereafter, barring a tenderly-handled fourth place on the Flat at Naas, the Jeremy gelding was campaigned exclusively at Grade 1 level over hurdles for the remainder of his tragically short career

However, he never won again. He was beaten by Hurricane Fly in the Ryanair Hurdle and the Irish Champion Hurdle, both at Leopardstown, before crossing swords with the defending champion for the third time in as many starts in the Champion Hurdle proper at Cheltenham. Sent off at 5/1 fourth favourite, he led as far as the third flight, where he took a horrific fall, sustaining a serious back injury. After extensive treatment by veterinary surgeons, he was humanely euthanised.