How many winners did Ruby Walsh ride at the Cheltenham Festival?

  • Posted on January 14, 2025
  • /Under Jockey

Rupert ‘Ruby’ Walsh announced his retirement from the saddle, with immediate effect, on May 1, 2019, having ridden Kemboy, trained by Willie Mullins, to victory in the Punchestown Gold Cup. Of course, Walsh had enjoyed a long, lucrative affiliation with the County Carlow handler, becoming stable jockey at Closutton on his return to his native Ireland in 2013. He said afterwards, ‘ I think I knew going out that if he won I wouldn’t ride again.’ Mullins, for his part, said, ‘Ruby was fantastic there, I’m delighted for him.’

Hailed by BBC horse racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght as ‘a supreme horseman’, Walsh was still only 16 years old when he rode his first winner of any description, Siren Song, trained by his father Ted, in a National Hunt Flat Race at Gowran Park on July 15, 1995. He became Irish Champion Amateur Jockey in both 1996/97 and 1997/98 and, on March 18, 1998, still two months shy of his nineteenth birthday, he opened his account at the Cheltenham Festival aboard Alexander Banquet in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper.

Walsh won the Irish Jump Jockeys’ Championship for the first time in 1998/99, but it was his victory on another horse saddled by his father, Papillon, in the Grand National, on his first attempt in 2000, that first drew him to the attention of the wider racing public. Just for good measure, 16 days later he would also win the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse on the former Triumph Hurdle winner Commanche Court, also trained by Walsh Snr., who was having just his fifth start over the larger obstacles. Indeed, Walsh would soon become a force majeure on both sides of the Irish Sea, having agreed a formal riding arrangement with Ditcheat trainer Paul Nicholls in 2002.

Walsh won Irish Jump Jockeys’ Championship again in 2001/2002 but, remarkably, granted he was splitting riding duties between Nicholls in Britain and Mullins in Ireland, he would win the title six years running between 2004/05 and 2009/10. In fact, following his decision to spend more time at home in 2013, he would win the title another four years running between 2013/14 and 2016/17, for a record 12 titles in all.

Nevertheless, immediately after his retirement, now 14-time Champion Trainer Nicholls was hugely complimentary about his erstwhile stable jockey, saying, ‘He’s been a fantastic jockey, a fantastic ambassador for the sport and he’s just a great man. He’s one of the best jockeys ever to ride for us and will always be a friend.’ Indeed, praise for Walsh was universal, befitting a jockey who, despite more than his fair share of injuries, finished his career with 2,767 winners to his name. He ranks third in the all-time list in Britain and Ireland, behind only Sir Anthony McCoy, with 4,348 career winners, and Richard Johnson, with 3,819.

For all his success elsewhere, though, from the point-of-view of the average punter, Walsh is likely to be remembered for his record-breaking exploits at the Cheltenham Festival. The aforementioned Alexander Banquet kick things off way back in 1998, but over the next two decades or so Walsh would add another 58 Festival winners, culminating with Klassical Dream, trained by Mullins, in the opening Supreme Novices’ Hurdle (a record sixth win in that race) on March 12, 2019. His final career total of 59 winners is 16 more than the second jockey on the all-time list, Barry Gergahty, with 43 winners and 28 more than the third, the otherwise indomitable McCoy, with 31 winners.

Between 2004 and 2017, Walsh won the leading jockey award at the Cheltenham Festival no fewer than 11 occasions and, on two occasions, in 2009 and 2016, rode a record seven winners over the four days. Fittingly, since 2020, his former weighing room colleagues have competed for a statuette of the great man, known as the ‘Ruby Walsh Trophy’.

Which races were added to the Cheltenham Festival programme in 2005?

The origins of what is now known as the Cheltenham Festival can be traced back to the inaugural running of the Grand National Hunt Steeplechase at Market Harborough on April18, 1860. Market Harborough Racecourse staged its final meeting on March 26, 1863 but, under the auspices of the National Hunt Committee, which was established by the Jockey Club in 1865, the National Hunt Chase continued to be staged, at various venues, until 1911. Cheltenham Racecourse was established, in its modern guise, by landowner William Baring Bingham in 1898 and hosted the first two-day ‘National Hunt Meeting’ in mid-April 1902. Back-to-back renewals of the National Hunt Chase were staged at Prestbury Park in 1904 and 1905 and, in 1907, the erstwhile ‘National Hunt Meeting’ was renamed the ‘National Hunt Festival’, at the behest of the Jockey Club.

That same year, the Steeplechase Company (Cheltenham) Limited was incorporated, under the chairmanship of Frederick Cathcart, who would remain at the helm until his death in 1934, and oversee the introduction of several major races during his tenure. In 1911, Baring Bingham offered the National Hunt Chase a permanent home at Cheltenham and running of that race effectively marked the nascence of the modern Cheltenham Festival. Under the advocacy of Cathcart, the Festival continued to flourish and, as the result of its popularity, was extended from two days to three in 1923. The Champion Hurdle was inaugurated in 1924 and the Cheltenham Gold Cup three years later, in 1927.

Notwithstanding the introduction of the ‘New’ Course, which was first used in 1967, the Cheltenham Festival remained a three-day event until 2005. Approval for a four-day Festival was received from the National Hunt Committee and Race Planning Committee of the British Horseracing Board (BHB) in February 2003. The initial format was four days of six races apiece, making 24 races in all, with a feature race – namely the Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase, World Hurdle (now Stayers’ Hurdle) and Cheltenham Gold Cup – on each day.

When the plans came to fruition, in 2005, the five new additions to the Festival programme were the Spa Novices’ Hurdle, Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, Cross Country Chase, Festival Trophy and, now-defunct, Centenary Novices’ Handicap Chase. The last named contest, run over an extended two and a half miles, had various sponsors, most recently Northern Trust, but was removed from the programme in 2021, in favour of the Liberthine Mares’ Chase (nowadays known, for sponsorship purposes, as the Mrs. Paddy Power Mares’ Chase), which is run over the same distance. The Centenary Novices’ Handicap Chase was transferred to Sandown Park, where it is staged on Imperial Cup Day, immediately before the Cheltenham Festival.

Arguably the most notable addition was the Festival Trophy, nowadays better known as the Ryanair Chase, having been sponsored by the low-cost Irish carrier since 2006. Also run over an extended two and a half miles, on the New Course at Prestbury Park, the Ryanair Chase was promoted to Grade 1 status in 2008, and rivals the Stayers’ Hurdle as the ‘feature’ race of the day on St. Patrick’s Thursday.

The Spa Novices’ Hurdle, which was also promoted to Grade 1 status in 2008, is run over three miles, also on the New Course. The Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, by contrast, is a Premier Handicap, run over an extended two miles on the Old Course. And, most idiosyncratic of all, the Cross Country Chase, nowdays sponsored by Glenfarclas, is a weight-for-sex conditions race, run over an extended three and three-quarter miles and 32 unique fences and obstacles, including banks, ditches and railed hedges.

Who is the only trainer to have saddled the winner of the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup in the same season?

  • Posted on November 10, 2024
  • /Under Trainer

Along with the Stayers’ Hurdle, the Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup comprise the four main ‘championship’ races staged annually at the Cheltenham Festival in March. The Cheltenham Gold Cup was first run, as a steeplechase, in 1924, the Champion Hurdle was first run in 1927 and the Queen Mother Champion Chase was first run, as the National Hunt Two-Mile Champion Chase, in 1959. However, in the six or so decades the races have co-existed, just one trainer has saddled the winner of all three in the same season.

The trainer in question is, of course, Henry de Bromhead, who is based in Knockeen, Co. Waterford and, in 2021, enjoyed an extraordinary four-week period in March and April. At the Cheltenham Festival, he saddled six winners, including not only an historic treble for Honeysuckle, Put The Kettle On and Minella Indo in the aforementioned championship races, but also Bob Olinger in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, Telmesomethinggirl in the Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle and Quilixios in the Triumph Hurdle. Three weeks later, de Bromhead saddled Minella Times and Balko Des Flos to finish first and second in the Grand National at Aintree.

Prior to 2021, the last trainer to win the Champion Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in the same season was Kim Bailey, who did so with Alderbrook, ridden by Richard Dunwoody, and Master Oats, ridden by Norman Williamson, in 1995. Bailey did not have a runner in the Queen Mother Champion Chase that year although, just over three weeks after his Gold Cup victory, Master Oats was sent off 5/1 favourite to become the first horse since the legendary Golden Miller to complete the Cheltenham Gold Cup – Grand National double. He didn’t, of course, weakening on the flat to finish seventh of 35 finishers, 15¾ lengths behind the winner, Royal Athlete.

Did Tingle Creek ever win the Queen Mother Champion Chase?

  • Posted on October 15, 2024
  • /Under Horse

To a younger audience, the name Tingle Creek is probably best known from the title of what is now a Grade 1 steeplechase, run annually over 1 mile, 7 furlongs and 119 yards at Sandown Park in early December. The eponymous Tingle Creek was, in fact, a flamboyant, front-running two-mile steeplechaser who won 23 of his 52 races in Britain during the seventies.

Trained by Harry Thomson ‘Tom’ Jones and ridden, at various stages of his career, by
David Mould, Ian Watkinson and Steve Smith-Eccles, Tingle Creek excelled on rattlingly fast ground and particularly so at Sandown Park, where he became a standing dish. He won the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup – which would later be renamed in his honour – under 12st 5lb in 1973 and the Sandown Handicap Pattern Chase three times, in 1973, 1977 and 1978. breaking the course record on each occasion. Smith-Eccles said of him, ‘ I never rode a more exciting jumper.’

Tingle Creek was retired from racing in November 1978 and was described by Timeform as ‘on occasions the best two-mile chaser around when conditions were in his favour’. For all his exploits elsewhere, though, the popular chestnut never won at Cheltenham. Four of his six attempts at Prestbury Park came in the National Hunt Two-Mile Champion Chase – which would not be renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother until 1980, after his retirement – and his best effort was in 1974, when second to Royal Relief.

That said, Tingle Creek regularly locked horns with the leading lights in the two-mile chasing division and often beat them on unfavourable terms. In the autumn of 1977, for example, he gave 4lb and a 20-length beating to Menehall, who subsequently finished second to Hilly Way in the 1978 Champion Chase, in a handicap at Fontwell Park.