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A horse called Bold Navigator ( I think!) ran at Punchestown this saturday and the commentator said it was 16, which seemed an incredible age still to be racing! Are there any you know of that are older?
He ran at Uttoxeter in the Hunter Chase BH, first run since September 2004 and he was last of the finishers beaten 119 lengths.
Ah Uttoxeter, sorry! Yes I know he didn’t do very well. Maybe it’s time he was retired.
Not sure but the remarkable Redoubtable became the first horse in over 20 years to win in Britain at the age of 14 last season.<br>Now retired he has embarked on a stallion career some 12 years later than a lot of the classic winning colts would.
On the Flat that may well be true but Weaver George winning a chase at 14 in ’04 and Better Times Ahead two hurdles at 15 a few years earlier spring to mind over jumps.
As for Burroughhills question: according to my database 5 15yo’s have raced this year but Bold Navigator the lone 16yo.
Quote: from Grey Desire on 9:21 pm on May 21, 2006[br]Not sure but the remarkable Redoubtable became the first horse in over 20 years to win in Britain at the age of 14 last season.<br>Now retired he has embarked on a stallion career some 12 years later than a lot of the classic winning colts would.<br>
Do they have viagra for horses then!
And Redoubtable was from the last crop of Grey Dawn, champion French 2-y-o of 1964 and the only horse ever to beat Sea Bird II, so he’s real link to the past.
Unsinkable boxer was also 16 when he ran at Naas in January of 2005. Being owned one time by Paul Greene I think??? This must have come as something of a surprise<br>
SHL
When I was a kid in the late sixties I was at Cartmel when a horse named Creggmore Boy ran I think at the age of 22 and came second. It was something of a course specialist and had won the previous season.
<br> :old:
I would have said Quixall Crosset but I believe the old fellow<br> is out at pasture.
Shergar’s head raced three worms recently and won by a boney nose
How do,
Quixall Crossett is now 21 years of age. He was still being hunted with the Bilsdale two years ago, but I don’t think a return to the track was ever in the offing, or would even have been permitted. I’ve not heard anything in the interim to suggest he’s not still alive.
Apart from Bold Navigator, Nosam is believed still in training at Richard Guest’s yard at the age of 16. He is the trainer’s hack, but as recently as last December Guest reiterated his wish to run the old boy again with him on board, in the hope of gaining both horse and rider a win with which to mark their respective retirements. Again, no advancement on this is as yet forthcoming.
In my lifetime the oldest horses I have seen record of running (but probably not the only examples thereof) are SONNY SOMERS, who won two handicap chases for Fred Winter in 1980 aged 18; and KEN LAKE, who was still being beaten hollow in bad, hard-ground early-season Exeter hurdles for R W Pincombe in 1991, also aged 18. The latter’s rating was an appalling 46 by the end of his career, and he often raced from over three stone out of the handicap.<br> <br>17yos I’ve seen in training include Major Prest’s DE PLUVINEL, who was still good enough to win the Royal Artillery Gold Cup at that age back in 1990; and Bob Brazington’s rather more moderate JIMBALOU, five times a winner but in selling class by the time of his last run in 2000.
gc<br>
(Edited by graysonscolumn at 11:58 pm on May 21, 2006)
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.
By the way, how old was Earthmover when he won at Cheltenham, I think in the Foxhunters a couple of years ago? I had a feeling he was 14, but I may be totally mistaken.
He was 13 when he won it two years ago but did run in the race as a 14 year old finishing 6th to stablemate Sleeping Night.
Anyone remember Algan winning a point head in chest a few years ago, possibly at 16.
One of racing’s great mysteries is how both Algan and Djeddah ended up running in point-to-points for James Ryan in 2004. Sixteen-year-old Algan won his first two races at Horseheath and Cottenham pulling a cart under Phil York but couldn’t manage any better than third in three more starts when ridden by the trainer. He was not seen again on the course so presumably was given a (second) honourable retirement. Despite being a much more sprightly thirteen poor old Djeddah fared less well. On his first PTP start in an Open at Badbury Rings he was pulled up exhausted four from home and promptly dropped dead – a rather ignominious end for a horse that had won a Feltham & a Reynoldstown, finished third in a SunAlliance Chase, competed in four Grand Nationals and won nearly £400K in prize money.
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