THE FESTIVAL 2017 MEDIA GUIDE

Queen’s Prize at Kempton Park and
over obstacles three Imperial Cups
(1920-22) and the 1920 County Hurdle
at Cheltenham. At stud he sired
Tickets, who became dam of the 1936
Champion Hurdle winner
Victor Norman.
The Champion Hurdle was founded
in 1927 as a foil to the Cheltenham
Gold Cup, too late for Trespasser
to show his talents at The Festival.
Appropriately, the first Champion
Hurdle winner Blaris was ridden
by George Duller, who was the
outstanding hurdles’ exponent of his
time, and had also partnered Wrack
and Trespasser.
But in those days hurdling was still
very much a minor branch of the
sport, regarded as a training ground
for future chasers and indeed Blaris
had won over fences at Newbury
on his previous outing. He beat just
three rivals at Cheltenham, where his
£365 prize was the least valuable of
the four hurdles, behind the County
Hurdle (£830), the Stayers’ Selling
Hurdle (£465) and the Gloucestershire
Hurdle (£415).
It was not until 1938 that the
Champion Hurdle’s value crept
past that of the County. The first
sponsorship came from Waterford
Crystal in 1978 (when the winner
Monksfield earned £21,332); after
which the Smurfit group took over
until succeeded by Stan James in 2011.
The 2017 first prize is £227,800 out of
a total prize fund of £400,000.
Grace (1949-51) and Sir Ken (1952-
54). The exploits of the trio, whose
careers overlapped, did much to
popularise their branch of the sport
and make the Champion Hurdle a true
championship.
National Spirit, trained by Vic Smyth
in Epsom, notched 19 wins over
hurdles and 13 on the Flat in a nineyear
career. His first Cheltenham
victory may have been fortunate; the
French-trained runner-up Le Paillon
– who won the Arc later that year -
was steered unconscionably wide the
whole way by a young Alec Head and
yet went down by only a length.
There was a comfortable second
victory for National Spirit in 1948.
But back in fifth came an unheralded
little Irish-trained eight-year-old, who
by the following year had changed
stables. It was not quite known yet
outside Ireland what a genius was his
new trainer, Co Cork-based Vincent
O’Brien, but in winning the 1949
Champion Hurdle by six lengths under
Aubrey Brabazon, Hatton’s Grace
helped to spread the word.
Hatton’s Grace won again in 1950,
when National Sprit blundered at the
last. A year on the contrasting pair -
plain, pony-sized Hatton’s Grace, with
Tim Molony up for the first time, and
17-hand pale chestnut National Spirit
- were in the air together again at
the last, only for the latter, under the
greater pressure, to fall.
Hatton’s Grace, whose career was
late starting because of wartime
restrictions, won his third Champion
Hurdle aged 11, matched only by
Sea Pigeon in 1981. He won over
fences in Ireland at the age of 13,
and then retired to O’Brien’s new
premises, Ballydoyle, where he led
the youngsters. “He was supposed
to be too old to win at Cheltenham,”
recalled O’Brien later. “But he never
knew that so I nicknamed him
Peter Pan.”
The youngest Champion Hurdle
winners have been four-year-olds
Brown Jack (1928), Brown Tony
(1930), Seneca (1941) and Forestation
(1942).
The next multiple champion, Sir Ken,
was perhaps the first truly great
hurdler. In the post-war era, trainers
plundered France for precocious
Jump-bred types who had been
learning their trade from a young age;
so there really is nothing new under
the sun.
Sir Ken was plucked from a race at
Auteuil for £750 by trainer Willie
Stephenson. He had failed to win
over hurdles in France but proved
a revelation after his transfer, with
17 straight wins, including one on
the Flat. His first 16 hurdle victories
included two of his three Cheltenham
titles, but also some uncompetitive
minor contests, one of which he won
at odds of 1/33.
Cheltenham Media Guide 2017
Probably none of the pre-war
Champion Hurdle winners can be
considered to be worthy of the race’s
eponymous tag, not even the second
winner Brown Jack, who later became
a high-class Flat stayer and a public
idol, or the first dual winner Insurance
(1932-33), who took his first edition by
12 lengths - a record margin he shares
with Istabraq (1998) – but who had
only two rivals in the race’s smallestever
field.
The standard of hurdling improved
markedly after the Second World
War, when two Cheltenham victories
for National Spirit (1947-48) were
followed by three each for Hatton’s
Winning jockey Ruby Walsh and trainer
Willie Mullins celebrate with the trophy
33