WITH the Cheltenham Festival now 17 days away, the Sun Racing team will be bringing you their ‘Festival 50’ every day between now and 10 March.
We will salute the Prestbury Park heroes that made us fall in love with the Festival, all the way until the ‘Cheltenham roar’ signals that the wait is finally over.
Number 17: Night Nurse
The Champion Hurdle roll of honour is chocablock full of legends.
But top of that tree could well be the heroic Night Nurse who won back-to-back Champion Hurdles during the golden age of hurdling.
Timeform agreed and to this day he holds the highest rating ever achieved by a hurdler, retiring with a mark of 182.
And it’s hard to argue with that after he saw off Sea Pigeon and Monksfield in the 1977 renewal.
Somehow, from the front, the brave but majestic Night Nurse fought off both challenges.
The late, great Paddy Broderick would not give in. Monksfield and Sea Pigeon would win four Champion Hurdles between them until 1981.
He was simply a remarkable horse. And his reputation nearly took the ultimate boost when he only found stablemate Little Owl too good in the 1981 Gold Cup.
Not bad for a horse that cost 1300 Guineas, was bred for sprints and won a Ripon maiden as a three-year-old.
None of that includes his first Festival win either where he brought up the famous treble of the English, Welsh and Scottish Champion Hurdles.
This horse may have been before my time, but you only have to watch back his races at the Festival to see why he was held so highly.
His trainer Peter Easterby summed it up best.
“He was so tough and was as brave as a lion.”
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