Blast From The Past: Stayers' Hurdle

‘If there is a good argument for a four-day Cheltenham meeting…it was provided by the Stayers’ Hurdle which fully deserved to be the centrepiece of its own day at the Festival. As it was, it was somewhat overshadowed by the next event on the card, the Gold Cup, even though, for our money, the Stayers’ was the race of the meeting.’

The year was 2003 and the winner of the Stayers’ Hurdle, for the second year running, was the French-trained Baracouda. The expansion of the Festival to four days which Chasers & Hurdlers mentioned duly came two years later, since when the Stayers’ Hurdle (as it becomes again this year after a period as the World Hurdle) has topped the bill on the Thursday of the meeting.

Overshadowed or not by the Gold Cup (won by Best Mate, also for the second year), it was the Stayers’ Hurdle that adorned the dust-jacket of Chasers & Hurdlers 2002/03 with a fine shot of Baracouda at the final flight in company with the two other top-class hurdlers, Iris’s Gift and Limestone Lad, who fought out the finish to a memorable contest.

All three horses were prolific winners beforehand. Baracouda had met with his first defeat in 10 starts on British soil when turned over by old rival Deano’s Beeno in the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot (which he’d won for the last two years) on his previous outing. Three years his senior, Ireland’s most popular horse Limestone Lad had run up a five-timer earlier in the season (taking his career tally to 35!) and was rated Baracouda’s chief rival, the betting unable to split the pair who were sent off the 9/4 joint-favourites. As for Iris’s Gift, he was unbeaten for the season, but as a novice with just five starts over hurdles to his name he was the surprise element in a race billed as a match between two horses with dramatically contrasting styles of racing; Baracouda, with a tendency to idle in front – and a potent turn of foot – needing to come late, against confirmed front-runner Limestone Lad.

‘It was easy to predict how the race might unfold’ said Chasers & Hurdlers, ‘and all the more thrilling to see as it came perfectly to fruition. Limestone Lad duly set a strong pace that gradually stretched the field and had nearly all of his rivals off the bridle more than a mile from home, with Baracouda all the while creeping closer…The prize was still up for grabs entering the straight, but with the major, unexpected addition that Iris’s Gift was there as well – three outstanding stayers, instead of two. At the final flight, all three were in the air together, with Baracouda holding a slight lead from Iris’s Gift, and Limestone Lad three quarters of a length behind them. Baracouda had played his hand a bit earlier than expected but, having, wrested the advantage, he never looked like relinquishing it and passed the post to the good by three quarters of a length. Limestone Lad was five lengths back in third.’

The 2003 Stayers’ Hurdle proved to be the last race of Limestone Lad’s remarkable career but Baracouda and Iris’s Gift were back again twelve months later when Baracouda’s bid to become the race’s first triple winner was foiled by his younger rival who turned the tables. Baracouda was runner-up again, behind Inglis Drever, in that 2005 renewal at the first four-day Festival, and made his final start when fifth to My Way de Solzen as an 11-year-old in 2006.