Cheltenham Festival book launched

As this year’s Cheltenham Festival draws ever closer the appearance of Cheltenham Festival Centenary 1911–2011 – An Irish Tribute, by Guy Williams, could not be more timely.

With a foreword by the Festival’s most successful owner, JP McManus, the book details the role of Irish owners, breeders, trainers, riders, punters and horses in making the Crucible in the Cotswolds a uniquely Irish overseas arena.

The book gathers together for the first time the triumphs and disasters that attended annual Irish forays to Prestbury Park in March. In addition to comprehensive indexes of horses and humans, it contains tables of every Irish-trained Cheltenham Festival winner.

From Ballinode in 1925 to War Of Attrition in 2006, the Cheltenham Gold Cup has crossed the 1rish Sea 21 times. Cottage Rake took it on three occasions, as did Arkle subsequently. The Champion Hurdle followed suit 18 times, from Distel in 1946 up to Hurricane Fly in 2011. Hatton’s Grace took the spoils three times, as Istabraq would later do.

Inkslinger, the only horse ever to win two steeplechases at the same Cheltenham Festival, was trained on the Curragh. Montelado, the only horse ever to win successive Cheltenham Festival events, was prepared to do so in Waterford.

Limerick handler, Delma Harty became the first of her sex to saddle a Cheltenham Festival winner, just as Caroline Beasley became the first woman ever to ride a winner at the Olympics of national hunt racing.

Ireland’s Cheltenham Festival record has actually mirrored the fortunes of Irish racing. From a record haul of nine winners in 1958, the Irish fortunes fell to an all-time low in 1989 – zero. That 1958 record stood until 2006, and was extended further with and extraordinary 13 Irish-trained winners last year.