Michael Chapman has a winner

[apracing]

In the Directory of the Turf (1989 edition) I mentioned earlier, Chapman names Quistador as the best horse he’d trained up to that time. That’s not a name that rang any bells with me, so I did a bit of digging into my Timeform annuals.

Quistador began racing as a sprint handicapper trained by Geoff Huffer in Newmarket, won twice as a 3yo, but disappointed as a 4yo in 1980 and was rated 54 in Racehorse of 1980. His breeding shouted sprinter on both sides, sired by Le Johnstan out a mare by Bleep-Bleep. Not an obvious candidate for hurdling, but he was sold to Chapman at the autumn sales for 620 gns and Chapman proceeded to work miracles.

Quistador ran 16 times in his first season and as he was bought in October, that’s 16 races in six months – he won four of them and got a TF rating of 113. The following season he was injured in his first run and off until the spring, when he won two handicap hurdles at Stratford.

Then in 1982/83, he ran 21 times over hurdles, winning three in the spring, the last one at Chapmans favourite track, Cartmel. His TF rating rose to 126. Finally in 1983/84, he won at Worcester in August, finished second on his chase debut at cartmel, then returned to hurdles, suffered a career ending injury in October.

So that 54 rated sprinter, who’d never won over further than 6F on the flat, produced 10 wins over hurdles in four seasons of action. No wonder he was a favourite with his trainer. I just wonder what Willie Mullins or Nicky Henderson would have made of such unpromising material.

[Astralcharmer]

Thanks for that apracing. Interesting stuff and proved that once upon a time he could get results out of some fairly moderate animals. It was only fairly recently that I heard him talking on one of the racing channels. I had no idea what he even looked like until then.

[Author]

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