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2m5f way too far for Sea Pigeon and that was a tired looking fall off a long stride you have seen him easily make at 2m.
Monksfield was even stronger over the extra half mile; he was really streaking away at the end
Until they changed the configuration and distance of the course (to Sea Pigeon’s advantage) the Champion Hurdle was, in some senses, a 2m4f hurdler’s race.
It was 2m200yds, the longer bit being uphill, and the ground was often more testing back then.
Nippy 2m hurdlers on park courses often didn’t get home in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham.
It suited horses like Night Nurse and Monksfield.
The bizarre thing about Sea Pigeon was that he never looked like he wanted a yard more than 2m over hurdles yet won the 2m2f Chester Cup on the Flat and horses usually stay further over timber than they do on the level.
But then Chester isn’t the most stamina-sapping of circuits.
Funny old game, Saint.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Those Champion Hurdles he was runner up to Monksfield in were run on pretty bad ground which blunted his superior speed and for sure only having to race up Cheltenham’s Hill just the once from 1980 did play to his strengths considering he was a classy flat horse that was 4th in the Dante and 7th in the Derby.
The sharpness of Chester probably hid the fact that he wasn’t a proper stayer and the ground was also pretty quick for those wins – strangely the Northumberland Plate over 2m at Newcastle always seemed to find him out stamina wise and I think probably 14F (the Ebor trip) was his ideal distance on the flat. Over 1m7F he just failed by a neck (under 10st) trying to conceed 26lbs to that year’s St Leger runner up and future dual Gold Cup winer Le Moss!
Imagine the fun you could have with him today in races like the Yorkshire Cup/Lonsdale Stakes/Irish St Leger and maybe even a Melbourne Cup and I am pretty certain he would have been right in the mix for a lot of the G2/G3 races over 12F – he was 2nd in the 1978 St Simon Stakes (when it was still a G2 race) and that effort came just 24 hrs after winning the William Hill Hurdle at the course!
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