Five legendary winners of the Lismullen Hurdle The Navan Racing Festival takes place later this week and we have two days of thoroughly competitive racing to look forward to, with one of the main events the Grade 2 Lismullen Hurdle, which has an illustrious roll of honour. This 2m4f race was established in 1987 and has been a Grade 2 since 1997. It's open to four-year-olds and upwards and Noel Meade is the leading trainer with seven wins. Here we take a close look at five of the most iconic horses to come out on top, including a Paddy Mullins horse that won it in three consecutive years. Cloughtaney Trained by Paddy Mullins, this Grade 1-winning hurdler won the race three times, between 1988 and 1990. First, he was defeated in the 1987 renewal, but bounced back to establish himself in the race's history. He was ridden by none other than Willie Mullins to win comfortably in 1988. No horse has won this race more times than course specialist Cloughtaney, who came out on top in four of his seven starts at Navan. Limestone Lad Limestone Lad is probably one of the best Irish hurdlers of all time, with a ridiculous record in some of the top races. The James Bowe-trained gelding won the Morgiana Hurdle three times, the Hatton's Grace victories and came out on top in this race back in 2002. Making all the running that day, the challenges came as they approached the second-last, but Limestone Lad went on again, scoring by two lengths from , who wLiss A Paoraighas the previous year's winner. Apple's Jade In more recent years, Gordon Elliott has won the Lismullen Hurdle three times in the last eight years and two of those successes were provided by Apple's Jade. The very talented mare won 11 Grade 1s over distances varying from two to three miles. She's also a Cheltenham Festival winner, having won the Mares' Hurdle in 2017. Her first Lismullen success came in 2017, when she got the better of Gavin Cromwell's Jer's Girl. Sire Du Berlais Elliott's Sire Du Berlais used to come alive in the spring, so the fact that he managed to win the Lismullen Hurdle in November is a massive bonus. He had won the Pertemps Final at Cheltenham in March of that year and would go on to repeat the feat a year later. His finest hours came in 2023 when he completed the Stayers' Hurdle and Liverpool Hurdle double. Winning this race by half a length in 2020, French Dynamite was back in second. Bob Olinger Henry de Bromhead's Bob Olinger burst onto the scene as a novice hurdler in 2020 and won his maiden hurdle over the same course and distance as the Lismullen, before going on to win the Lawlor's Of Naas and the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham. It's a bit of a shame that he didn't go on to have the career that his early promise suggested, but the gelding did manage to win the Stayers' Hurdle at Cheltenham earlier this year. Winning the Lismullen in 2023, he travelled strongly throughout and stayed on well to score by a length.
