In the next in his series of iconic Cheltenham Festival moments, John Ingles looks back to when the great Sprinter Sacre regained his Champion Chase crown and received a rapturous reception.
It’s not easy for former champions to regain their crowns at the Cheltenham Festival. Kauto Star is the only Gold Cup winner to have done so, in 2009, and Hurricane Fly became only the second Champion Hurdle winner to win back his title in 2013. But perhaps the greatest, or certainly the most popular, recent instance of a Cheltenham hero rediscovering past glories was when Sprinter Sacre returned from the wilderness to win his second Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2016, three years after first winning the race.
Some context is needed first to explain what made Sprinter Sacre’s second Champion Chase victory one of the Festival’s iconic moments. For a start, he had become a Festival regular and, at the age of ten, was making his fifth appearance at the meeting. He finished third in the Supreme as a novice hurdler but it was an unbeaten sequence of ten races over fences over the next two seasons which secured Sprinter Sacre’s place among the very best jumpers of the modern era. Those wins included an outstanding performance for a novice in the Arkle, when giving a seven-length beating to Cue Card, and an even more impressive display in his first Queen Mother Champion Chase 12 months later.
Sent off at 1/4, Sprinter Sacre took his form to another level when sauntering clear from the home turn to win the 2013 Champion Chase by 19 lengths on the bridle, chased home by the winner from two years before, Sizing Europe. A rating of 192 not only made Sprinter Sacre Timeform’s Horse of The Year, but also the highest-rated jumper in the 45 years of the Chasers & Hurdlers annuals, shading that achieved by Kauto Star.
Mindful of the various setbacks that can cut short a jumper’s career, Sprinter Sacre’s essay in Chasers & Hurdlers that season concluded ‘the advice to jumping devotees is to enjoy Sprinter Sacre while you can. It might be a long time before his like is seen again.’
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Those words proved all too prescient. Sprinter Sacre saw only around two minutes of racecourse action the following season as he was pulled up amiss after jumping just seven fences in the Desert Orchid Chase on his return at Kempton. There was immediate speculation about Sprinter Sacre’s racing future, though the example of Denman, who had recovered fully from an irregular heartbeat, which was what Sprinter Sacre had suffered, gave some encouragement that he’d be seen on a racecourse again, at least.
It was to be more than a year before Sprinter Sacre made his next appearance, finishing second to the Tingle Creek winner Dodging Bullets in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot on his only start before making a first attempt to win back his Champion Chase title. The Champion Chase was billed as the 2015 Festival’s highlight, with Sprinter Sacre at 9/4 just preferred in the betting to 5/2-shot Sire de Grugy who, after winning the Desert Orchid, had gone on to win the Champion Chase in Sprinter Sacre’s absence the year before.
As it happened, neither horse was anywhere near his best on the day, with Sprinter Sacre’s notably disappointing effort – he was quickly pulled up after finding nothing when asked for his effort after three out – again seeming to put his future in doubt. But he returned at Sandown the following month in the Celebration Chase where his second place behind the Champion Chase third Special Tiara gave some hope that his days in the best company over two miles weren’t all behind him.
Improbable though it must have seemed at various points in the previous couple of seasons, Sprinter Sacre returned in the 2015/16 season, perhaps not back at his outstanding best but showing much of his old dash, certainly enough to prove too good for his rivals in both his races before another crack at the Champion Chase. When Sprinter Sacre returned to a Festival-type reception after winning the Shloer Chase at Cheltenham in November, his trainer Nicky Henderson reflected ‘The last couple of years haven’t been easy for him or us…but I really did feel he was a lot different to last year, and he looks so well. He was back as if he was king. We are not all the way there, but we are going in the right direction.’
A beating of old rival Sire de Grugy in the Desert Orchid Chase confirmed as much, in stark contrast to when the pair had met in the same race two years earlier. Given a break until the Festival, Sprinter Sacre started the 5/1 second favourite in a field that included the two most recent winners, Dodging Bullets and Sire de Grugy, as well as Somersby who’d been runner-up to both.
Recovering from injury and/or loss of form is only one of the challenges a former champion has to overcome. Another is the appearance on the scene of a younger, up-and-coming rival and Sprinter Sacre faced just such a challenger in the 2016 Champion Chase. Un de Sceaux’s record, if not his level of form, good though it was, was very similar to Sprinter Sacre’s in his younger days. Considered one of Willie Mullins’ ‘bankers’ at the meeting and all the rage at odds of 4/6, Un de Sceaux, two years younger than Sprinter Sacre, had won all 14 of his completed starts, including the previous season’s Arkle and, most recently, the Clarence House Chase in which he’d readily beaten Sire de Grugy.
After Special Tiara had set a fast pace for much of the way, favourite backers must have been confident of collecting when the strong-travelling Un de Sceaux took over in front running down the hill. But meanwhile, Sprinter Sacre, who had chased the leading pair, putting in some spectacular leaps, was beginning to close despite being a little untidy three out. Ranging up on Un de Sceaux’s outer approaching the home turn, Sprinter Sacre swept past the leader in a matter of strides rounding the bend and was soon clear before jumping the second last well. A slight mistake at the last didn’t halt his momentum but he began to tire a little on the steep climb to the line, still having three and a half lengths to spare from Un de Sceaux with the rallying Special Tiara a nose back in third.
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Discover Sporting Life Plus BenefitsFrom when he took the lead, and especially having cleared the final fence safely, the noise from the grandstand drowned out much of the on-course commentary, while the reception which greeted Sprinter Sacre and his jockey Nico de Boinville on their return to the winner’s enclosure matched any seen at the Festival in recent times. Royal Relief in the ‘seventies and Moscow Flyer, who won his second Champion Chase in 2005, were the other horses to have regained their Champion Chase titles, though theirs came two years apart rather than three.
‘For two golden years, he was unbeatable and I’m not going to say he is still the same horse, but maybe he had to be almost as good as ever to do that’, said Henderson after what must rank as one of his greatest training triumphs.
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