Big Races

The origins of what is now known as the Cheltenham Festival can be traced back to the inaugural running of the Grand National Hunt Steeplechase at Market Harborough on April18, 1860. Market Harborough Racecourse staged its final meeting on March 26, 1863 but, under the auspices of the National Hunt Committee, which was established by the Jockey Club in 1865, the National Hunt Chase continued to be staged, at various venues, until 1911. Cheltenham Racecourse was established, in its modern guise, by landowner William Baring Bingham in 1898 and hosted the first two-day ‘National Hunt Meeting’ in mid-April 1902. Back-to-back renewals of the National Hunt Chase were staged at Prestbury Park in 1904 and 1905 and, in 1907, the erstwhile ‘National Hunt Meeting’ was renamed the ‘National Hunt Festival’, at the behest of the Jockey Club.

That same year, the Steeplechase Company (Cheltenham) Limited was incorporated, under the chairmanship of Frederick Cathcart, who would remain at the helm until his death in 1934, and oversee the introduction of several major races during his tenure. In 1911, Baring Bingham offered the National Hunt Chase a permanent home at Cheltenham and running of that race effectively marked the nascence of the modern Cheltenham Festival. Under the advocacy of Cathcart, the Festival continued to flourish and, as the result of its popularity, was extended from two days to three in 1923. The Champion Hurdle was inaugurated in 1924 and the Cheltenham Gold Cup three years later, in 1927.

Notwithstanding the introduction of the ‘New’ Course, which was first used in 1967, the Cheltenham Festival remained a three-day event until 2005. Approval for a four-day Festival was received from the National Hunt Committee and Race Planning Committee of the British Horseracing Board (BHB) in February 2003. The initial format was four days of six races apiece, making 24 races in all, with a feature race – namely the Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase, World Hurdle (now Stayers’ Hurdle) and Cheltenham Gold Cup – on each day.

When the plans came to fruition, in 2005, the five new additions to the Festival programme were the Spa Novices’ Hurdle, Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, Cross Country Chase, Festival Trophy and, now-defunct, Centenary Novices’ Handicap Chase. The last named contest, run over an extended two and a half miles, had various sponsors, most recently Northern Trust, but was removed from the programme in 2021, in favour of the Liberthine Mares’ Chase (nowadays known, for sponsorship purposes, as the Mrs. Paddy Power Mares’ Chase), which is run over the same distance. The Centenary Novices’ Handicap Chase was transferred to Sandown Park, where it is staged on Imperial Cup Day, immediately before the Cheltenham Festival.

Arguably the most notable addition was the Festival Trophy, nowadays better known as the Ryanair Chase, having been sponsored by the low-cost Irish carrier since 2006. Also run over an extended two and a half miles, on the New Course at Prestbury Park, the Ryanair Chase was promoted to Grade 1 status in 2008, and rivals the Stayers’ Hurdle as the ‘feature’ race of the day on St. Patrick’s Thursday.

The Spa Novices’ Hurdle, which was also promoted to Grade 1 status in 2008, is run over three miles, also on the New Course. The Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, by contrast, is a Premier Handicap, run over an extended two miles on the Old Course. And, most idiosyncratic of all, the Cross Country Chase, nowdays sponsored by Glenfarclas, is a weight-for-sex conditions race, run over an extended three and three-quarter miles and 32 unique fences and obstacles, including banks, ditches and railed hedges.

Sir Anthony McCoy began his riding career in low-key fashion when, as a 17-year-old, claiming 10lb, he finished unplaced on favourite Nordic Touch, trained by Jim Bolger, in a 6-furlong handicap at Phoenix Park on September 1, 1990. At that early embryonic stage, few could have predicted that, the best part of a quarter of century later, on April 25, 2015, a day like no other at Sandown Park, McCoy would bid a tearful farewell to National Hunt racing after one of the most incredible careers in that sport or any other.

However, for all his success elsewhere, McCoy seemed destined, for much of his career, to join the likes of Jonjo O’Neill, John Francome and Peter Scudamore, among others, on the list of multiple champion jockeys never to have won the Grand National. His first foray into the celebrated steeplechase, in 1995, lasted less than a circuit, with his mount, Chatham, trained by Martin Pipe, coming a cropper at the twelfth fence, immediately before the Anchor Bridge Crossing of the Melling Road. Indeed, that initial non-completion was followed by four more, on Deep Bramble, trained by Paul Nicholls, in 1996, and three more Pipe-trained runners, Challenger Du Luc, Eudipe and Dark Stranger, in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000, respectively.

McCoy also failed to complete the course, at least at the first time of asking, on Blowing Wind, also trained by Pipe, in the 2001 Grand National. However, in an eventful renewal, following a refusal early on the second circuit, he remounted (at a time when the practice was still allowed) to eventually finish third, albeit beaten a distance and the same by the only two horses to jump all 30 fences without mishap, Red Marauder and Smarty.

Over the next seven years, McCoy completed the Grand National Course three times, but never finished better than third. That placing came aboard Clan Royal, owned by John Patrick ‘J.P.’ McManus and trained by Jonjo O’Neill, in 2006. Sent off joint-favourite, after finishing second in 2004 and being carried out by a loose horse, when in the lead, in 2005, Clan Royal challenged at the third-last fence, but ultimately had to give best to the Irish-trained pair, Numbersixvalverde and Hedgehunter.

Of course, it was on another horse in the famous gold and green hoops of J.P. McManus, Don’t Push It, also trained by O’Neill, that would finally provide McCoy with a Grand National winner, in 2010. The subject of a late gamble, into 10/1 joint-favourite, the Old Vic gelding took closer order early on the second circuit, led over the final fence and forged clear on the run-in to win by 5 lengths.

Born in County Antrim on May 4, 1974, McCoy became Champion Conditional Jockey in 1994/95, his first season in Britain, and subsequently became Champion Jockey every year until his retirement, at the end of the 2014/15 season. He was still only 27 when, in April 2002, he beat Sir Gordon Richards’ long-standing record of 269 winners in a single season and went on to amass an astonishing 289 in the 2001/02 season as a whole.

The following August, McCoy became the most successful National Hunt jockey in British history, beating the previous record of 1,699 winners, set by Richard Dunwoody. By the end of his career, he had racked up and eye-watering 4,348 winners under National Hunt rules, plus another 10 on the Flat, thereby setting a record that may never be broken. McCoy was awarded a knighthood for his services to horseracing in the 2016 New Year Honours, but nonetheless later singled out breaking Richards’ record as his ‘greatest achievement’, adding, ‘nothing else comes close’.

For readers unfamiliar with the name, Overdose was a high-class Hungarian sprinter, trained Sandor Ribarski, who won 16 of his 19 races and was, at one point, hailed as arguably the best horse to emerge from the ‘Heart of Europe’ since the legendary Kincsem in the late nineteenth century. Likewise, Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp is a prestigious and valuable Group 1 race, nowadays worth €350,000 in prize money, which is run over 1,000 metres, or approximately five furlongs, at Longchamp Racecourse in the Bois de Bolologne, Paris. Named after the Royal Abbey of Longchamp, which once stood on the site, the race takes place on the same day as the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, traditionally the first Sunday in October.

On October 5, 2008, Overdose, hitherto unbeaten in his first 10 starts, lined up, alongside 19 rivals, for his first attempt at the highest level in the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp. Ridden by Austrian jockey Andreas Suborics, Overdose was smartly away and made most of the running to win comfortably. Despite being eased down in the closing stages, his winning time was only fractionally slower than the record 54.30 seconds set by ‘The Flying Filly’ Habibti 25 years earlier.

However, unbeknown to Suborics, when the stalls opened, stall 17 failed to do so, leaving Fleeting Spirit, ridden by Ryan Moore, stranded at the start. Inevitably, a false start was signalled, but Suborics, among others, continued riding all the way to the finish line. The Prix de l’Abbaye could not be re-run immediately and when it was, nearly five hours later, Overdose was, understandably, one of three withdrawals from the original field. Ribarski, equally understandably, expressed his disappointment, saying, ‘I have travelled 1,700 kilometres for this’.

Compared with the other ‘named’ fences on the Grand National Course – that is, Becher’s Brook, The Canal Turn, Valentine’s Brook and The Chair – the fence now known as ‘Foinavon’ is really nothing to write home about. Indeed, at 4’6” high and 3’ wide, it is one of the smallest obstacles on the course. Of course, the positioning of the fence, immediately following the precipitous drop on the landing side of Becher’s Brook, can set a trap for the unwary, but the obstacle itself is otherwise unremarkable.

Neverthless, the apparently innocuous fence, which is jumped twice during the Grand National – as the seventh fence on the first circuit and the twenty-third on the second – was the site of one of the most memorable series of events in the history of the great race. To recap, briefly, in 1967, the riderless Popham Down, who had unseated rider at the first fence, refused at, and ran down the twenty-third fence, causing a mêlée. The ensuing carnage put paid to the chances of all bar one of the remaining runners, leading commentator Michael O’Hehir to exclaim, ‘And now, with all this mayhem, Foinavon has gone off on his own!’

Trained by John Kempton and ridden by Grand National debutante John Buckingham, Foinavon was a bona fide 100/1 outsider, but, gifted a huge lead, was always going to take some catching. Several of his rivals set off in hot pursuit, but Foinavon made the best of way home and crossed the line 15 lengths ahead of his nearest pursuer, favourite Honey End, ridden by Josh Gifford. In the aftermath of the debacle, O’Hehir suggested that the seventh fence could one day be named ‘Foinavon’ in honour of the unlikliest of winners and, in 1984, the Aintree Racecourse Executive officially did just that.