3-yr old hurdlers who train on

Persian War

A someone that was close to the Elsworth yard in the 80’s, I’m pretty sure that Cavvies Clown made his hurdle debut as a 5-y-old, after running in bumpers. However the yard did have two high class chasers that started out in juvenile hurdles – Barnbrook Again and Desert Orchid. The former ran as a juvenile for Stan Mellor and switched to Elsworth later.

A more recent candidate for your list – Fair Along, who ran in very early season juvenile races for John Flint before being sent to Hobbs.

And here’s a tale here about one that kept going until his teens:

Memory Lane

AP

Katchit.

Two of the greatest hurdlers of all time ran in the Triumph Hurdle. Night Nurse finished unplaced in 1975, but went through the following season unbeaten, winning his first Champion Hurdle. When he followed up in 1977 he drifted in the market due to the concerns over the soft ground which had been cited as the reason for his poor run in the Triumph.

The diminutive Monksfield finished runner up in the 1976 Triumph and did not appeal as the type who would progress. He won the Champion Hurdle in 1978 and 1979, and is a candidate for the toughest horse to ever look through a bridle. He seemed to appear every couple of weeks, often given impossible tasks from the top of the handicap. This was before there was a laid out programme of conditions races in Ireland for prospective Champion Hurdle candidates.

When Night Nurse and Monksfield dead heated in the 1977 Templegate Hurdle,with Night Nurse giving away a small weight allowance, it is still to this day the greatest ever hurdling performance on Timeform ratings. He tops their hurdling ratings on 182, with Monksfield and Istabraq joint second on 180.

Another all time great to contest the Triumph was See You Then who came to Nicky Henderson from Michael Cunningham just before the race with a massive reputation. He was beaten by Northern Game in a race that Henderson lost Childown who had run up a sequence since being bought from the Stoute yard.

Ironically, these great horses came out of the Triumph when it was a brutal cavalry charge, and when some believed that it could spoil a horse for life.

“Ironically, these great horses came out of the Triumph when it was a brutal cavalry charge, and when some believed that it could spoil a horse for life.”

The Triumph is like a Triumph trial nowadays. What a mess they have made of what was the best three days NH racing in the world, indisputably. In 100 years the Festival will probably last 6 months with a Grade 1 in all disciplines over every distance from 2m to 4m, with separate races going up in increments of a 1/4 furlong (one race for each sex, of course).

You don’t get a Dawn Run every two minutes (or even decades), but its depressing to think that if she was around today she would probably have won the Mares Hurdle, followed by a Rynair, and the Rynair is only if connections were feeling ‘bold’ by today’s standards.