Katchit

 

The winner of just one of is 14 starts for Mick Channon, and two more for Alan King, on the Flat as a two- and three-year-old, Katchit proved something of a revelation when sent over hurdles at the start of the 2006/07 National Hunt season. Ridden by Robert 'Chocolate' Thornton, as he was in all bar two of his 24 hurdles starts, Katchit opened his account at the first time of asking, winning a juvenile novices' hurdle at Market Rasen by 9 lengths eased down. Indeed, over the next two seasons, he would win ten of his 13 starts, including twice at the Cheltenham Festival, finish second twice and third once.

Fresh from a 1¾-length victory over previous Grade One winner Good Bye Simon in the Finesse Juvenile Hurdle the previous January, Katchit was sent off 11/2 second-favourite for a competitive, 23-runner renewal of the Triumph Hurdle, over the same course and distance, on his first appearance at the Cheltenham Festival in 2007. Competitive on paper, that is, because Katchit drew clear in the closing stages for an impressive, 9-length victory.

The following season he returned to the Cheltenham Festival, attempting to become the first Triumph Hurdle winner since Kribensis, in 1990, to win the Champion Hurdle. After suffering defeats by Harchibald and Osana, both of whom reopposed, earlier in the season, Katchit was sent off at 10/1 joint-fifth choice of the market behind 2/1 favourite Sizing Europe. However, with the market leader suffering an injury in-running, on 4lb better terms, Katchit managed to reverse earlier International Hurdle form with Osana to the tune of 9 lengths, to win, all out, by a length. In so doing, he became the first five-year-old to win the Champion Hurdle since See You Then in 1985.