Next in our series highlighting the achievements of Cheltenham greats, John Ingles focuses on dual Champion Hurdle winner Night Nurse.
Between 1968 and 1981, the Champion Hurdle was won by a succession of top-class or even outstanding hurdlers. Persian War, Bula, Comedy of Errors, Lanzarote, Night Nurse, Monksfield and Sea Pigeon. All achieved Timeform ratings of at least 175 and all bar Lanzarote won the race at least twice – Persian War completed a hat-trick. Competition was so fierce that another of the era’s best hurdlers, Bird’s Nest, good enough to win most editions of the race, never did; he was placed twice.
There are several candidates from that list, therefore, to be this week’s Cheltenham Great but Night Nurse has the strongest claims. As well as winning the Champion Hurdle twice, he competed at seven Cheltenham Festivals, the first as a four-year-old and his final one at the age of eleven. In addition to being a brilliant hurdler, he was nearly as good over fences and came as close as any, in the era before Dawn Run managed the feat, of winning both the Champion Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. But also, Night Nurse was just about the best of the lot in Timeform’s opinion; his hurdle rating of 182 has never been exceeded, with Istabraq (180) getting the closest of those who’ve come along since.
Night Nurse’s Festival debut wasn’t one to dwell on as he finished well beaten in the 1975 Triumph Hurdle on what Timeform called ‘almost indescribably-bad underfoot conditions’. The next season in a hurdler’s career after his juvenile campaign is often considered a tough one as he takes on his seniors for the first time, but that wasn’t the case for Night Nurse. He enjoyed an outstanding season, winning all eight of his races between early October and late April, with the Champion Hurdle being win number six. His best performances prior to Cheltenham came in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle and the Sweeps Hurdle at Leopardstown, having the reigning Champion Hurdler Comedy of Errors (he won back the title in 1975 after losing it to Lanzarote) behind him on both occasions.
In receipt of weight from Comedy of Errors on both those occasions, Night Nurse’s wins prior to the Champion Hurdle established him as a good hurdler but he still needed to improve at Cheltenham to reach the normal standard of a Champion Hurdle winner. He was sent off the 2/1 favourite in a field that included Lanzarote as well as Comedy of Errors, but rather than the former winners it was another from the new generation of hurdlers who gave him most to do. That was Bird’s Nest who’d beaten Comedy of Errors in the Wolverhampton Champion Hurdle Trial on his last start before Cheltenham.
Night Nurse was a confirmed front runner and he became the first horse for at least 25 years to make all the running in a Champion Hurdle, jumping fluently as usual under his first regular jockey Paddy Broderick. Bird’s Nest briefly looked dangerous on landing over the last but began to hang left as Night Nurse kept straight and galloped on strongly to win by two and a half lengths. The previous season’s runner-up Flash Imp took third ahead of Comedy of Errors and Lanzarote.
After Cheltenham, Night Nurse faced straightforward tasks in the Scottish and Welsh Champion Hurdles, facing one opponent at Ayr and beating the only other finisher at Chepstow. The 1975/76 season was a remarkably dry one and in none of Night Nurse’s eight races that season did he encounter ground softer than good. Night Nurse was undoubtedly the best hurdler in training (Timeform rated him 178 that season, with Bird’s Nest on 176), at least on a sound surface – he’d shown form under softer conditions earlier in his career - but he still had to show that his improvement wasn’t entirely down to the ground.
He got the chance to do that when defending his Champion Hurdle crown in 1977 on heavy ground but by then doubts had set in about him retaining his title. Night Nurse had begun the season well with two more wins, taking his unbeaten sequence over hurdles to ten, but then suffered two unexpected reverses prior to Cheltenham. Bird’s Nest inflicted a crushing fifteen-length defeat on him in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle and, while he finished just in front of his old rival in the Christmas Hurdle, both were beaten narrowly at Kempton by Dramatist who’d finished sixth in the Champion Hurdle.
As a result, Night Nurse was only fourth in the betting for the 1977 Champion Hurdle behind Bird’s Nest, Ireland’s top hurdler Master Monday and Dramatist, all of whom had won since Christmas – Night Nurse hadn’t run since Kempton, missing a trip to Ireland when the going became heavy.
But similar conditions proved no problem for him at Cheltenham. ‘Night Nurse went straight into the lead in the Champion Hurdle and gave a magnificent display of bold, efficient hurdling’ said his essay in Chasers & Hurdlers, ‘skimming over the top bar at each flight, landing well out over the far side and picking up his stride remarkably quickly on the flat.’ Joined at the last by Monksfield, the previous season’s Triumph Hurdle runner-up from Ireland, and Dramatist, Night Nurse jumped it the best of the three and ran on strongly to beat Monksfield by two lengths with the same distance to Dramatist in third; Sea Pigeon was fourth and Bird’s Nest fifth.
Once again, Night Nurse had two starts after the Champion Hurdle and won them both despite having to concede weight to the pair who’d chased him home at Cheltenham. He had to share the spoils with Monksfield in an epic Templegate Hurdle at Aintree before beating Dramatist at Chepstow to win the Welsh Champion Hurdle again. Hopes were high, therefore, that Night Nurse, Timeform’s Horse of the Year for the second season running, would join the elite band of triple Champion Hurdle winners.
Night Nurse was duly sent off favourite to complete the hat-trick in 1978, having beaten Bird’s Nest and the Sweeps Hurdle winner Decent Fellow in the Yorkshire Hurdle at Doncaster on his final start before Cheltenham. But the truth was that Night Nurse had an indifferent season by his very high standards and the Doncaster race turned out to be the only one of his ten starts that he won in 1977/78.
He also had a new partner for his hat-trick bid as Broderick had retired after sustaining injuries in a bad fall from Night Nurse in the Christmas Hurdle. Jonjo O’Neill rode him at Doncaster but would have ridden stablemate Sea Pigeon (fourth the year before) instead had he not been injured the day before the Champion Hurdle, with the ride on Night Nurse going to Colin Tinkler. Night Nurse set out to make all as usual but was swept aside after the second last and finished only third behind Monksfield and Sea Pigeon.
The baton had been passed to the next two dual Champion Hurdlers and it was time for a new chapter in Night Nurse’s career. There was plenty of confidence in him making a successful transition to chasing, not least because of his big, strong physique. So well did Night Nurse take to fences, in fact, that connections had no hesitation in running him in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the first of his three attempts at the race, in his novice season.
He came home a tailed-off last of the seven finishers behind stablemate Alverton in a substandard renewal run in a snowstorm, though with the possible excuse of not having recovered from his only other defeat in completed starts that season. That had come in the final of the Embassy Premier Chase series at Haydock against another leading novice, Silver Buck, in the first of several meetings between the pair.
When he set out in the 1979/80 season, therefore, Night Nurse’s stamina for the Gold Cup trip, or even over three miles, was still to be proven, though when he sustained a tendon injury finishing second to Silver Buck at Haydock again in the Edward Hanmer Handicap Chase in December, the bigger question of his whole racing career was thrown into doubt.
But Night Nurse made a full recovery, winning a handicap under 12-3 at Doncaster after more than a year’s absence and going on to prove better than ever. He didn’t win again in four more starts before the 1981 Gold Cup but was in the process of running another good race against Silver Buck - Timeform thought Night Nurse would have probably beaten him this time – when he unseated at the last in the King George VI Chase.
The pair met again in the Gold Cup for which Silver Buck stood his ground despite the heavy going and was sent off the 7/2 favourite ahead of Night Nurse and his younger stablemate Little Owl on 6/1. Little Owl had won all four of his starts that season and, had it not been for him taking his chance for Peter Easterby as well, Night Nurse would have made history as the first horse to win both a Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup. Night Nurse earned plenty of praise in defeat, though.
‘Enthusiasm and determination alone do not win Gold Cups but if they did Night Nurse would have been a worthy winner’ said his essay in Chasers & Hurdlers. ‘If there was a more courageous performance during the season by a chaser we didn’t see it.’ Night Nurse led for much of the way before being joined by Little Owl and Silver Buck entering the straight. He was outpaced by his two challengers going to two out but rallied under hard riding to regain second from Silver Buck after the last and cut into Little Owl’s lead to go down by a length and a half.
Night Nurse was eleven by the time he lined up for his third and final Gold Cup in 1982 but three wins earlier in the season had shown him to be in top form going into the race and he was sent off the 11/4 favourite in a record field of 22. Silver Buck, on the other hand, who’d had Night Nurse back in third when winning the Edward Hanmer for the third time earlier in the season, was on the side-lines with a foot injury from Christmas until a few weeks before the Festival. But while the race proved a career highlight for Silver Buck, it was very much a low for Night Nurse who was never going well and eventually pulled up having been reluctant even to line up beforehand.
The following season confirmed the sad truth that Night Nurse, as tough and genuine as they come for the majority of his lengthy career, had lost his appetite for racing and he was retired on New Year’s Day 1983 after finishing a remote fifth in the King George the previous week. He still managed to win a race at Wolverhampton earlier that season, his 32nd success from a total of 64 races over jumps over nine seasons. ‘He was a fine ambassador for jumping and must have made many a convert to the sport’ concluded his final essay in Chasers & Hurdlers.
