THE ROLL of honour of the Cheltenham Festival’s top races is littered with legends of jump racing.
The likes of Arkle, Badsworth Boy, See You Then and Best Mate are rightly remembered as some of the greats to grace the sport’s biggest stage.
There are others who should’ve, could’ve, would’ve joined them as Cheltenham legends had fate tipped the balance more their favour and some champions who have been criminally underrated.
Here’s seven Festival greats that should be given far more credit than they get.
Birds Nest
You won’t see Birds Nest’s name on any Champion Hurdle trophy.
That’s obviously because he didn’t win one but in another era he might well have done.
Trained by Bob Turnell and usually ridden by his son Andy, Birds Nest ran in the Festival’s top hurdling prize no less than six times.
The closest he got was when runner-up – beaten a length – behind dual winner Night Nurse in 1976.
It was a golden age of hurdling, perhaps the period with the most karats, containing the likes of Sea Pigeon, Monksfield and Comedy Of Errors.
Birds Nest stood toe-to-toe with the best and often beaten them. His trophy haul included three wins each in the Bula Hurdle and the Fighting Fifth Hurdle as well as two Scottish Champion Hurdles and a Christmas Hurdle.
He might only have been a bit-part player in one of the great Champion Hurdles when third behind Sea Pigeon and Monksfield in 1980 but there’s no doubt his role was an important one.
The greats are often measured by the horses they beat and, while his 19 victories did not include a Champion Hurdle success, he has every right to be remembered as one of the best.
Cause Of Causes
Tiger Roll might have been denied the chance to win a historic third Grand National but he will remain a Cheltenham legend for his four Festival victories.
Cause Of Causes – also trained by Gordon Elliott – might not have the standing of his stablemate but he did match his feat of winning three different races at jump racing’s greatest meeting.
All that from a horse, as a half-brother to Derby hero Kris Kin, bred to win Classics.
When he lined up for the 2015 National Hunt Chase he had drawn a blank in ten chase starts having gone closest to breaking his duck when runner-up in the previous year’s Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup.
His shock win in Ascot’s Ladbroke Hurdle, at that point his finest hour, was looking a distant memory and his stamina for the four-mile trip was far from guaranteed.
Under a beautiful ride from top Irish amateur Jamie Codd he came through from the rear to see off Broadway Buffalo.
His second Festival success the following year was far easier when he landed the Fulke Walwyn/Kim Muir by 12 lengths and he completed the unusual hat-trick in the 2017 Cross Country Chase.
Cause Of Causes only won three chases. That they were all at the Festival, and all in different races, is something quite special.
Great memories of Cause Of Causes winning the Cross Country Chase for @gelliott_racing.
Always produced his best Cheltenham
— HorseRacing.net (@HorseRacing_Net) April 9, 2018
Chinrullah
Few horses have taken apart a Champion Chase field like Chinrullah did in 1980.
Mick O’Toole’s ace had won the Arkle Trophy at the previous year’s Cheltenham Festival so he knew his way around the track and the 15-8 favourite put in a devastating performance on testing ground under jockey Dessie Hughes.
The way he stormed away from some exhausted rivals that had been snapping at his heels going into the second-last fence was sensational so it was even more astonishing he was able to line up in the Gold Cup just 24-hours later.
Sadly, his 25-length Champion Chase romp was erased from the record books a couple of months later. He had failed a dope test due to a batch of contaminated feed.
The following year, on better ground, Chinrullah was unable to go the fierce pace set by Anaglogs Daughter and he beat just one home. He bounced back to finish second in 1982 but he never threatened to get close to the winner Rathgorman.
Chinrullah was not the only horse disqualified in 1980 as easy all-the-way Gold Cup winner Tied Cottage was also thrown out for the same reason.
To add a further, tragic twist to the sorry episode, neither Tied Cottage's trainer Dan Moore and owner Anthony Robinson would see another Cheltenham Festival.
Both Chinrullah and Tied Cottage would return. They faced each other in the 1983 Foxhunter Chase.
Tied Cottage, by then a 15-year-old, made much of the running before fading into fourth, while Chinrullah went well for a long way but failed to make any impression on Eliogarty and Earls Brig up the final climb.
The inquiry into the failed dope tests found both trainers were blameless but it still meant the greatest performances of two fine horses were ultimately totally in vain.
Forgive N Forget
The bookies in the 1980s feared few trainers like they feared Jimmy Fitzgerald.
When the Yorkshire-based Irishman emptied their satchels with the heavily-backed 5-2 favourite in the 1983 Coral Golden Hurdle Final, now the Pertemps, it was pretty obvious they had seen a star of the future.
Forgive ‘N Forget might have made it a Festival double having switched to fences the following year but he had to settle for the runner-up spot having been held up way off the pace by John Francome.
Regular jockey Mark Dwyer, out injured the previous year, was back on board when he returned for the 1985 Gold Cup and he got the timing right to lift the Festival’s greatest prize.
Defending that crown has never been easy but his third behind Dawn Run and Wayward Lad in one of the epic Gold Cups was another page to his Cheltenham chapter.
His third appearance, when a red-hot 5-4 favourite in 1987 following an impressive Irish Gold Cup win, was notable only for the disappointing display. Whether it was the delayed start or the snow-covered ground will never be known but it was clearly not the Forgive ‘N Forget Cheltenham punters had come to love.
That was disappointing but what was the follow 12 months later was utterly tragic. Cruising into contention behind Cavvies Clown and eventual winner Charter Party, he jumped the fourth-last fence poised to challenge. Two strides later Dwyer was pulling him out of the race with a broken leg. It was a heart-breaking end for a horse deserving of far more recognition.
L’Escargot
It’s hard to fathom how ‘The Snail’ isn’t one of the first names on the sheet when a list of jumping greats is being drawn up.
Quite why a two-time Gold Cup hero, who is one of only two horses to have lifted Cheltenham’s greatest prize and the Grand National, is continually ignored is a mystery to me.
Throw in the fact his Aintree victory came when thrashing Red Rum by 15 lengths as a 12-year-old in 1975 the puzzle deepens.
His association with the Cheltenham Festival started in 1968 when he won the second division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle, now the Supreme Novices’.
He was sixth behind Persian War when second favourite for the following year’s Champion Hurdle before blowing his novice status a few weeks later.
It meant he was one of the least experienced when lining up for the 1970 Gold Cup so it was no surprise L’Escargot, trained by Arthur Moore’s father Dan, was sent off at 33-1.
That didn’t stop him and he returned the following year to land his second Gold Cup by ten lengths from Leap Frog with 1973 winner The Dikler back in third.
Perhaps, it was his failure to win a third Gold Cup – he was only fourth in the next two – is the reason for his place lower down the pecking order of racing’s greats than he deserves.
L’Escargot was also placed twice in the Grand National in the years immediately before his triumph but there’s no doubt his three Festival victories make him a true Cheltenham legend.
Theatreworld
Despite his name, Theatreworld was never destined to play a starring role.
That might make him a strange horse to be included in a list of underrated horses but, if there was an Oscar-like award for the best supporting horse, he would be a short-priced favourite.
In finishing runner-up in three consecutive Champion Hurdles he came up against some of the greats.
Those efforts might mark him down as a pretty decent performer himself but he wasn’t even the best hurdler in his own stables. That honour belonged to, perhaps, the greatest hurdler of them all – Istabraq.
This was in the days when Aidan O’Brien was still plotting his way to Cheltenham as well as Ascot, Epsom and Newmarket.
Theatreworld started his career with another of Flat racing’s top trainers, Sir Michael Stoute. After one uninspiring run in a Newmarket maiden, notable only as multiple Group 1 winner Pilsudki’s debut, he switched to owner John Magnier’s main trainer.
Plenty of wins both on the Flat and over hurdles followed but when he lined up for his first crack at the Champion he was an unconsidered 33-1 shot.
He might not have landed a glove on devastating all-the-way winner Make A Stand but he stayed on well to finish second.
Fast forward 12 months and he filled the same position in the first of Istabraq’s three Champion Hurdle wins when 20-1 and, quite incredibly, he was 16-1 when chasing home his stablemate in 1999.
That surely should afford him some credit, if only from forecast punters.
Willie Wumpkins
Very few horses win four times at the Cheltenham Festival. Most – like Big Buck’s, Quevega, Istabraq, Arkle and Sir Ken – achieve the staggering feat by bossing championship races.
It’s arguably an even greater feat to do it with a hat-trick of handicaps. When you win the second of those four Festival prizes at the age of 11, it’s pretty obvious there’s something special about Willie Wumpkins’ Cheltenham exploits.
When he won what is now the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle in 1973 he looked sure to develop into a smart jumper. After all, the next two winners of that prize were subsequent three-times Irish National winner Brown Lad and 1977 Gold Cup hero Davy Lad.
Willie Wumpkins was destined to make his mark at the Festival but he would have to wait fully six years from his Ballymore win after heart problems halted his progress.
When he did return – trained by permit-holder Jane Pilkington and ridden by her pipe-smoking son-in-law amateur jockey Jim Wilson – he won the Coral Golden Hurdle Final at odds of 25-1.
The next year he retained the trophy before returning to make it three wins on the bounce in what is now the Pertemps Final.
Willie Wumpkins only won seven times in a 65-race career so more than half of his victories came at the Cheltenham Festival. The last of those came as a 13-year-old in one of the meeting’s most competitive handicaps. A truly remarkable horse.
