Nick Pulford looks at four vintage Cheltenham years.
2008THIS
was the year the Festival was blown off course, but not for long. The second of the four days had to be cancelled after high winds put the safety of spectators at risk, resulting in bumper cards on the last two days after the weather had relented and the races were rescheduled. The storm that blew in on Thursday’s 10-race card went by the name of Master Minded, who produced one of the most dominant performances in the history of the Festival with a 19-length victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase from Voy Por Ustedes, the previous year’s winner. The racing started at 12.30 that day with Old Benny’s success in the National Hunt Chase and went on to the final race at 5.50, the Champion Bumper won by Cousin Vinny. Among the other highlights along the way, Our Vic landed the Ryanair Chase at his fourth attempt, Albertas Run scored the first of three wins at the Festival in the Royal & SunAlliance Chase and Inglis Drever took the Stayers’ Hurdle for the third time. Having won the race in 2005, Inglis Drever was prevented from defending the title by injury but returned victorious in the next two years. He was the first horse to win the Stayers’ Hurdle three times, a record soon eclipsed by the four-timer of Big Buck’s, and remarkably had a different jockey each time. In 2008 it was the turn of Denis O’Regan, following on from Graham Lee and Paddy Brennan.
Friday’s racing also started at 12.30 with the first running of the Mares’ Hurdle, won by the Donald McCain-trained Whiteoak, but the race everyone was waiting for was the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which featured one of the great rivalries of steeplechasing with
the first clash between Kauto Star and Denman.
The two Paul Nicholls-trained heavyweights finished first and second, with stablemate Neptune Collonges completing a memorable 1-2-3 for the trainer, but it was Denman who won the day in emphatic fashion, finishing seven lengths clear of Kauto Star.
Denman’s rider Sam Thomas, now a trainer, remembers the day with pride. “I was confident my horse would run his race, but it was going into the unknown against Kauto Star. It was a good friendly rivalry and what it did for racing was amazing,” he says. “People still tell me it’s the best Gold Cup they’ve ever seen and the walk in front of the stands after we’d won was the most magical feeling in the world.”
Other big winners on Friday’s nine-race card included Fiveforthree (Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle) and Celestial Halo (Triumph Hurdle), both partnered by Ruby Walsh as he took the leading rider award.
Day 1 was run against a backdrop of the strengthening wind that was to wreak havoc and the big spoils in the Champion Hurdle went to Katchit, the previous year’s Triumph Hurdle winner who became the first five-year- old to take the crown since See You Then in 1985. Sizing Europe, who was to become a dual Festival winner over fences in the Arkle Trophy and Queen Mother Champion Chase, travelled strongly down the hill but the 2-1 favourite dropped out quickly after the second-last, with a strained joint in his pelvis later identified as the reason.
That left the battle between Katchit and Osana, with a length separating them at the line. Two subsequent Champion Hurdle winners were beaten on the day. Punjabi was third to Katchit before returning to win the next year, while Binocular, the 2010 Champion winner, was runner-up to Captain Cee Bee in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. The other notable winner was Tidal Bay, who was to become a fans’ favourite in his long and eventful career. The then seven-year- old strolled to an impressive 13-length success in the Arkle Trophy Chase.