The Champion Hurdle is,
of course, a mainstay of the Cheltenham Festival where, alongside the
Queen Mother Champion Chase, the World Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold
Cup, it is one of the ‘championship’ races. The first
recognisable Cheltenham Festival took place in 1911, but the Champion
Hurdle was not inaugurated until 1927. Just five horses have won the
Champion Hurdle three times and, coincidentally, all five won in
three consecutive years.
Hatton’s Grace (1949,
1950, 1951), trained in Ireland by Vincent O’Brien, didn’t see a
racecourse until the age of six because of restrictions imposed
during World War II, but that didn’t stop him from winning the
Champion Hurdle by 6 lengths at the first attempt in 1949. He
returned to Prestbury Park in 1950, once again forging clear up the
infamous Cheltenham ‘hill’ to win by 4 lengths after National
Spirit made a mistake at the final flight and completed the hat-trick
in 1951 when the same rival, who’d led over the second last, fell
at the last. Not bad for a horse described by Horse and Hound as a
‘mean, ragged-looking animal’.
Festivalgoers didn’t
have to wait long for a new champion because Sir Ken (1952, 1953 and
1954), trained by Willie Stephenson, also won at the first attempt in
1952. A notoriously vicious character, who had apparently fought and
killed a paddock companion, he showed a good turn of foot to beat
Noholme and Approval on that occasion and won again in 1953, despite
being forced to make his own running. Even when he was considered
past his best in 1954, he was sent off 4/9 favourite for the Champion
Hurdle and, despite making hard work of winning, duly obliged to take
his place in Cheltenham Festival history.
Persian War (1968, 1969
and 1970) won the Champion Hurdle three times despite the
interference of his errant owner, the late Henry Alper. Effectively
rescued and nursed back to health by Chepstow trainer Colin Davies
after an abortive spell in France, Persian War won the Schweppes
Hurdle at Newbury under 11st 13lb a month before winning his first
Champion Hurdle in 1968. A fractured femur kept him off the course
until February of the 1968/69 season, but he recovered sufficiently
to win the Champion Hurdle again, by 4 lengths, landing bets worth
£25,000 for his owner. The following season, Alper insisted that
Persian War ran on the Flat at Newbury, on very firm ground, with the
result that he jarred a joint and was lame for over a month.
Nevertheless, he returned to Cheltenham to take his third and final
hurdling crown in 1970, resisting the challenge of old rival Major
Rose.
Known to his detractors
as ‘See You When’ because of his notoriously fragile legs, which
restricted him to sporadic racecourse appearances, See You Then
(1985, 1986 and 1987), was apparently another brute who would think
nothing of taking a chunk out of anyone who came within range. The
son of Derby winner Royal Palace won the Champion Hurdle by 7 lengths
in 1985 and, despite a career that lasted only six further starts,
won again by 7 lengths in 1986 and again, by 1½ lengths, in 1987.
After his third success, trainer Nicky Henderson and jockey Steve
Smith-Eccles both conceded that he ‘blew up’ on the run-in, but
such was his class that he got away with it.
The most recent
three-time winner of the Champion Hurdle, Istabraq (1998, 1999 and
2000), joined Aidan O’Brien after his intended trainer, John
Durkan, was diagnosed with leukaemia. John Durkan had already told
owner J.P. McManus that Istabraq would win the Royal Sun Alliance
Novices’ Hurdle in 1997, which he did, and Aidan O’Brien
predicted that he would ‘destroy them’ in the Champion Hurdle in
1998, which he did, winning by 12 lengths. He won again in 1999 and
2000, recording the fastest time ever on the latter occasion and was
odds-on favourite for the 2001 renewal before the entire Cheltenham
Festival was abandoned because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth
disease.
