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Just found this on YouTube. Apologies, if someone has already posted it, but I think it deserves it’s own thread.
I wasn’t even born at that time (Persian War era) and find a lot of aspects of this clip very interesting. Still amazed to find out that Persian War how much work he needed at home and how well he took to that. Also impressed by the big sized CH fields and so much more…..Thanks. I’ll watch that. I missed out on that period of racing; probably tied up with looking after small children, but when I came back to racing thanks to Desert Orchid I bought Julian Wilson’s Greatest Racehorses book and read up on the era that I’d missed.
So fortunate to have witnessed this golden era; horses running regularly, carrying weight in handicaps and so many class animals.It’s something that’s unlikely to be seen again.
Sea Pigeon was always my favourite of the time, he oozed class but watching this reel how good, how hardy and how brilliant was Night Nurse?
A great watch for sure – that roll call of Champion Hurdle winners during that period beggars belief and the fact that they also won big handicaps under top weight shows you that they were not only class horses but tough as nails with it.
Sea Pigeon was (and still is) my favourite racehorse of all time, the greatest dual purpose horse of all time without a doubt – could you just imagine any of the pampered so called stars of recent years having a full NH campaign and then rather than going on their summer break they instead go straight into running on the flat and then back to a NH hunt campaign……and he did that year in year out.
He still holds the weight carrying record (10st) for the Ebor and won more races (37) than many would have had total career races – he won as a 2 yr old with Lester Piggott on board, finished 4th in the Dante and 7th in the Derby at 3 and then went on to win a Champion Hurdle as an 11 yr old with John Francome on board.
They certainly don’t make them like that anymore……mores the pity.
Was Lanzarote the only one of those great hurdlers to go chasing? It was interesting to see that Birds Nest was a bit of a tail swisher. Heartbreaking to see Ekbalco and Golden Cygnet. Great as he was Sea Pigeon must have been a nightmare to ride!
“Was Lanzarote the only one of those great hurdlers to go chasing?”
Night Nurse did. 2nd in the 1981 Cheltenham Gold Cup. He was my first ‘favourite’ racehorse when i got into horse racing though i missed his Champion Hurdle wins and it was near the end of his hurdling career and start of his chasing career i started to get the racing bug as a kid.
I was gutted when he wasn’t able to go one better in the Gold Cup the following year after being 2nd in it as he would’ve made history before Dawn Run by doing the Champion Hurdle/Gold Cup double.His second Champion Hurdle win in 1977 came at the height of what is widely regarded as the ‘golden era of hurdling’. Indeed, that second Cheltenham win came in the classiest-ever field assembled for the Champion Hurdle, the fact that runner-up Monksfield and fourth-placed Sea Pigeon went on to win the next four renewals merely underlining the strength in depth.
I just looked up Birds Nest as I knew very little about him. This is what Wikipedia said.
‘Throughout his career, he was known for being a difficult and temperamental horse, with a tendency to veer left when under pressure’.
I’d noticed that he swished his tail a lot and he certainly veered left in that race!Well, that was wonderful. Thanks very much for sharing, ERL.
What comes back vividly is that it wasn’t just an era of great two-time Champion Hurdlers, with Night Nurse, Monksfield and Sea Pigeon the Holy Trinity of the age.
There was a fabulous supporting cast and it was great to see, and hear, some of the great names like Easby Abbey, Birds Next, Dramatist, Flying Diplomat, Western Rose, Kybo, Pollardstown, Heighlin and, yes, Broadsword.
I’m sure nostalgia skews the memory, but it did seem as if there was a big hurdle race every weekend or so in which one or more of the top rank would go head to head. There’s a casual reference on the vid to Sea Pigeon winning under 12stone 7… good grief, he was some horse.
An excellent way to spend an hour or so!
“it did seem as if there was a big hurdle race every weekend”
There was, but many of those races have either been downgraded to handicaps, or disappeared completely.
Sandown first week in November ran the John Skeaping Marlow Ropes Hurdle, later called the Holsten Diat Pils Hurdle, that’s now a handicap.
Newbury had the William Hill Hurdle on the NH card of their three day late October meeting – Sea Pigeon won that in 1978 and ran in the St Simon Stakes the next day! That’s disappeared.
Newbury also turned the Gerry Fielden Hurdle into a handicap. Partly because the Fighting Fifth was moved from early November to be run on the same day as newbury.
Ascot had the HSS Hire Shops Hurdle on the SGB Chase card just before Xmas – that’s gone.
And of course we lost the Windsor New years Day Hurdle, along with Champion Hurdle trials in Jan/Feb at Wolverhampton and Nottingham. And more recently, the Oteley Hurdle at Sandown disappeared.
Lastly, Newbury ran the Berkshire Hurdle twelve days before Cheltenham, which Morley Street won before scoring in the Champion Hurdle.
Not to mention that it was common practice for CH class hurdlers to run in the big handicaps. I can remember in 1994 that the first three in the Tote Gold Trophy filled the first three places at Cheltenham, but in the reverse order.
Thank you for your kind words, broadsword. I find it amazing to be able to “turn back” time and savour the great era on NH Racing.
“And of course we lost the Windsor New years Day Hurdle, along with Champion Hurdle trials in Jan/Feb at Wolverhampton and Nottingham.”
And we lost all three of those tracks as National Hunt venues, until Windsor makes a welcome return next month, albeit on a new circuit.
Royal Gait won twice at Nottingham before his victory at Cheltenham.
Thanks++ fro this Ruby; fascinating to watch, they used to actually run their horses in those days. BTW in that Fighting Fifth, did Pollardstown hold on, or did Birds Nest get up?
I’m sure that someone told me back then, that Royal Gaits legs were so fragile that, if he’d touched a twig he would have stopped dead.
Befair, I’m quite sure Birds Nest got up in 1979 to win his third FF win. The commentator got this completely wrong.
Ironic that a number of those races were small field events but when they consist of multiple Champion Hurdle winners taking each other on head to head (what a concept), it is not an issue as opposed to now when we have a long odds on chance taking on horses that are (in many cases) stones inferior to them at level weights.
A golden era not just because of how great the horses were but the fact that they would clash multiple times before the big day in March and also turn up in handicaps under massive weights and race on every type of ground from one extreme to the other (regradless of whether it suited them or not)…just goes to show what a thoroughbred can really do when they are not wrapped up in cotton wool/bubble wrap and treated like fine china that can only take one hard run before having months off to recover.
Thanks for that ERL, great stuff
There was a fabulous supporting cast and it was great to see, and hear, some of the great names like Easby Abbey, Birds Next, Dramatist, Flying Diplomat, Western Rose, Kybo, Pollardstown, Heighlin and, yes, Broadsword.
It’s so nice to be reminded of these good ol’ names. If I recall correctly, Kybo was the word whispered to the owner by his mother on being packed off for a term at boarding school: ‘Keep your bowels open’
And I also recall Peter O’Sullevan (I think) pronouncing Broadsword as Broads Word
Memories are made of this
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