Legendary past winners of the Fortria Chase This weekend brings the Navan Racing Festival, with two days of exciting jumps racing to come at the Co Meath venue on Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th November. There's quality racing alongside music and entertainment afterwards and it promises to be a brilliant weekend. One of the highlights is the Bar One Racing Fortria Chase, a Grade 2 contest over two-miles that includes multiple Queen Mother Champion Chase winners on the roll of honour. Here we are looking at five of the finest to win the Fortria Chase. Moscow Flyer Where better to start than the Jessica Harrington-trained Moscow Flyer, winner of this contest in 2003 and 2004 as rider Barry Geraghty completed a hat-trick of wins, having also steered home Alcapone for Mouse Morris a year previous. Moscow Flyer won this race on his comeback in successive seasons before landing the Tingle Creek at Sandown soon after, while he also landed the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham in 2003 and 2005 as one of the outstanding two milers of this century. Nickname Martin Brassil won this contest with Nickname in 2006, the start of a stellar season that saw his charge win six of his seven starts, including a Grade 1 at Leopardstown over Christmas and graded events at Naas and Navan in the spring as he reached a top rating of 168. Ruby Walsh was the man in the plate for most of those successes, but Nickname was retired at the end of the following season. Big Zeb The record-breaker and, to date, the only three-time winner of the Fortria Chase. Big Zeb dominated this contest from 2009-2011 for Colm Murphy, with Geraghty in the plate for the first two wins before Robbie Power took over for the hat-trick. He was denied a fourth win only by Flemenstar in 2012, though in truth the winner was much too strong. A winner of six Grade 1s over fences, Big Zeb had his major moment in the sun when he landed the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham on St Patrick's Day in 2010 and he twice more made the frame when Sizing Europe and Finian's Rainbow won. Flemenstar The apple of trainer Peter Casey's eye, Flemenstar was a four-time winner around Navan including successive renewals of this race in 2012 and 2013. He claimed the biggest win of his career via the John Durkan Memorial Chase at Punchestown in December 2012, a win that sparked a memorable exchange with Tracey Piggott live on RTE television. He thrice ran well in Grade 1 company through the rest of that season and would win his fourth and final Grade 1 at Leopardstown over Christmas in 2015 by which time he was trained by Anthony Curran. Captain Guinness The most recent Fortria Chase winner who also has his name in the Cheltenham Festival history books as a Champion Chaser, Captain Guinness took out this prize in 2022 and 2023 for Henry de Bromhead and Rachael Blackmore, the duo both completing trebles after also scoring with Notebook in 2021. Captain Guinness twice fended off Riviere D'etel to win this contest, but was denied a hat-trick by the same owners Found A Fifty in 2024 when his effort petered out late on. He ran in the Queen Mother at Cheltenham four times, never finishing worse than third, and famously landed the two-mile Championship event in 2024 when odds-on favourite El Fabiolo was pulled up and Edwardstone crashed out at the second last. His win there helped Blackmore win the third of the crown jewels in the Cotswolds and she completed the set in 2025 as Bob Olinger won the Stayers' Hurdle.
