We are currently in the thick of the National Hunt season and fans are blessed with a high number of exceptional chasers to cheer on.
Douvan, Altior, Might Bite, Bristol De Mai, Thistlecrack, Great Field, Min, Sizing John and Djakadam are all supremely talented and bidding for further glory this year. But they have a long way to go before they can break into the top five chasers of all time. Here are the UK and Ireland’s five most legendary chasers so far:
Mill House
This Irish-bred, English-trained racehorse, foaled in 1957, has one of the best Timeform records of all-time. He was an absolute beast, huge and physically imposing, 18 hands tall, with a tremendous stride and exemplary jumping ability.
He won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1963 and seemed on the brink of greatness, but Mill House had the misfortune of being around at the same time as Arkle, who denied him the level of glory he should have been entitled to. He still went on to win the 1967 Whitbread Gold Cup, but he will always be remembered for coming off second best against the legendary Arkle. Had his career taken place in any other era, he would surely have dominated, and it shows just how high the overall quality was back in the 1960s.
Paul Nicholls’ gelding is one of the most successful steeplechasers of all-time and retired with a National Hunt record of £3,775,883 in earnings. He is the only horse to ever regain the Cheltenham Gold Cup, winning it in 2007 and 2009, and he set another record by winning the King George VI Chase five times. The King George VI Chase is one of the biggest events of the year and takes place at Kempton on Boxing Day.
If you check the Sun Bets markets on today’s racing and look for antepost options, you will see several big names in contention for this year’s race, including Might Bite, Thistlecrack, Bristol De Mai and Sizing John.
It is shaping up to be the race of the year and the field is very competitive, but in his prime Kauto Star would have destroyed the lot of them. Sir AP McCoy called him “the most complete chaser of the modern era” and an outpouring of grief accompanied his untimely death in 2015.
Sprinting Sacre
Sprinting Sacre has the highest Timeform rating of the modern era, eclipsing even the great Kauto Star after enjoying a superb career. He was an emphatic two-mile chaser and secured a run of dominant wins in 2013, winning the Tingle Creek Chase, Victor Chandler Chase, Queen Mother Champion Chase, Melling Chase and Punchestown Champion Chase in quick succession. For a while Sprinting Sacre was absolutely untouchable and his career would have been far more glittering had it not been hit by a string of bad injuries.
Flyingbolt
Tom Dreaper’s chestnut gelding was sired by the 1946 Derby winner, Airborne, a stud who was believed to be impotent and placed in a paddock as a companion to a supposedly barren 19-year-old mare called Eastwick.
The pair hit it off, made a little love and the unexpected outcome was the birth of Flyingbolt, who went on to become one of the greatest chasers in history. He announced himself on the big stage when he won the Irish Champion Hurdle and Novices’ Hurdle in 1964. He started as odds-on favourite in all five races that year and won all of them with ease.
After a similarly dominant 1965, he started as 1/5 favourite in the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the shortest starting price in the race’s history, and triumphed with breathtaking ease. He won 17 of 20 career starts and can lay claim to being the best of all time. He never raced Arkle, as they shared the same trainer and Dreaper did not want to pit them against one another, but his form suggests he could have beaten his great stablemate. His record against the same rivals was often better than Arkle’s, but he was always in the shadow of his companion.
Arkle
Arkle does, however, have the best Timeform record in history, leaving him two points ahead of Flyingbolt and 20 clear of Sprinter Sacre. His career was cut short by injury, but he won three Cheltenham Gold Cups, the King George VI Chase, the Irish Grand National and all manner of other Gold Cups.
In the 1965 Gallagher Gold Cup he conceded 16lb to Mill House and still obliterated him, beating the course record by 17 seconds. Poor old Mill House is one of the all-time greats, as detailed above, but he is regularly used as a mere marker for how amazing Arkle was. Arkle beat him by 20 lengths in the 1965 Gold Cup, coming in at odds of just 3/10.
In the following year’s renewal Arkle was the shortest priced favourite ever at just 1/10, and justified that by winning the race by 30 lengths, capping an unbeaten season. No horse today could live with Arkle’s pace and he would be a hero in any era. He is a legend in Ireland and his skeleton is still on display in the Irish National Stud Museum, while a statue stands proudly in Ashbourne Co, but people that saw him in the flesh still speak of him in awed tones.
Author bio
Martin Green is an experienced tipser and horse racing correspondent.
