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With only all weather racing to keep us going, my mind wandered to thinking about what was the greatest hurdle race in history
In my opinion it was the 1977 Champion Hurdle.
1st Night Nurse
2nd Monksfield
3rd Dramatist
4th Sea Pigeon
5th Birds NestNight Nurse was the highest ever rated hurdler by Timeform at 182
The first two came out a few weeks later at Aintree in the Templegate Hurdle and fought out one of the greatest finishes I have ever seen to dead heat when Night Nurse was giving Monksfield 6 pounds
Interested to hear anyone else’s views
The 1977 Champion Hurdle is arguably the one, although the previous year’s renewal had quite a line-up to.
Remarkably, Night Nurse had, by his standards, an indifferent campaign running up to Cheltenham that year, Bird’s Nest had thrashed him beforehand and as a consequence, Peter Easterby’s champion was easy to back at 15/2 on Champion Hurdle day. Paddy Broderick ( his jockey ) was adamant that Night Nurse would still win and thus it duly proved.
Monksfield gained his revenge a year later, but by then Night Nurse was not the horse of old.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Agreed Himself.
He was an incredibly tough and talented animal was Night Nurse, always running at the top level for years both over hurdles and fences.
Incredible to think that he did it all even after being diagnosed with a heart murmur as a 4 year old.
I thought that it was a lovely gesture that when he passed away at 28 that they buried him at Peter Easterby’s, and kept a plot next to the old boy for his sparring partner Sea Pigeon.
Gone but not forgottenAdd
Golden Cygnet
Istabraq
Persian War
Comedy of Errors
Lanzarote
Bula
See You Thenthere a race to walk over hot coals to get to.
Christmas Hurdle 1985, Dawn Run and Gaye Brief; I;ve never been able to locate a recording.
BTW Kempton is badly represented in the video libraries; I’d love to see the 1970s King Georges again, Pendil and Captain Christy; they would have shown even Kauto Star and Dessis a clean pair of heels
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Interested to hear anyone else’s views
It’s impossible to find another hurdle race of such quality. The thread should’ve been closed after your opening post!
Christmas Hurdle 1985, Dawn Run and Gaye Brief; I;ve never been able to locate a recording.
Likewise. Will the two of them joining battle in the 1985 Templegate (or Sandemann Aintree Hurdle, as it was by that stage) suffice in the meantime?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okpXxrPCc8M
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Thanks for that, great to see it, justa reminder of what an incredible mare she was, destroying the geldings and giving them weight. KS and Dessie are versatile champions, but the mare was indomitable, and would surely have racked up a few more Gold Cups (and King Georges) but for greed.
May not be the greatest hurdle race of all time, but some of the battles between Hardy Eustace, Brave Inca, Harchibald and the ill fated pair Macs Joy and Iktitaf really got me hooked on racing in what was a golden age for Irish 2 mile hurdlers.
My favourite hurdle race of all time was the tote gold trophy when geos beat rooster booster a head. Had everything for me a good hurdle race should have, big field, fast pace, big weight carrying performance and a desperate finish!
The famous dead heat between Monksfield and Night Nurse at Aintree in 1977. A battle royal between two of the all time greats. Follow that if you can we all thought that sunny afternoon. The sport did just that. The very next race was the Grand National and Red Rum wrote his place among the immortals winning it for the third time in one of the most emotional finishes to a race ever seen. What a an hour of racing and two races that will live long in the memory.
I`m hazy on the details but one of the best line ups I`ve ever seen for a handicap hurdle was for the first running of the Royal Doulton at Haydock on the May Bank Holiday in the late 70s. It didn`t produce a top class winner (Fred Rimell`s outsider Royal Gaye landing the prize).
Night Nurse’s engagements with et al were indeed historic and compelling races but for me there is one race from rather later that dropped the jaw even bigger time: Pridwell’s defeat of Istabraq in the Aintree Hurdle of 1998.
I’m not one given to eulogising jockeys – if the horse is good enough…blah blah – but in this instance the conveyance Pridwell was lumbered with was responsible for converting a likely loss into an unlikely win
McCoy’s finest few seconds and a fabulous race
VC reportedly laid JP 80,000/130,000 Istabraq that day…pennies AP, ride for me will ya?
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