Cross-country king Roi Mage still reigning at 13 ahead of Becher Chase at Aintree

Much has changed in the last ten years. There have been five Prime Ministers since David Cameron was in office in 2015, Covid was still years away from being unleashed on an unsuspecting world, Elon Musk was getting by with a net worth of only around $13 billion, AI was still learning to tie its shoe laces, and you could have still got change out of 70p for a first-class stamp.

In the world of jumps racing, 2015 was the year Many Clouds won the Grand National, and while Willie Mullins was still trying to win his first Cheltenham Gold Cup (Djakadam was runner-up to Coneygree), he had better luck with Faugheen in the Champion Hurdle.

That same year, a three-year-old gelding named Roi Mage was taking his first steps over hurdles in France and remarkably, ten years later, the now teenage Roi Mage is still going strong after 63 races, figuring among the entries for Saturday’s Becher Chase over the big fences at Aintree.

Roi Mage will be one of the outsiders if lining up on Saturday, but his age alone isn’t a reason to dismiss his chances as the Becher has been won by old-timers before. Oscar Time was another 13-year-old when successful in 2014 but he’s not even the oldest winner as Hello Bud was a year older when winning it for a second time two years earlier.

Both Oscar Time, who was runner-up in the Grand National, and Hello Bud, who was also a Scottish Grand National winner, didn’t make their debuts in Irish bumpers until they were five. Oscar Time was seven when he won his first race, still running in bumpers at the time, while Hello Bud was a real late-developer, not registering his first win until he had just turned ten.

What makes Roi Mage’s career out of the ordinary is that he’s not only still racing at an age when most of his contemporaries have been pensioned off, but as already mentioned, he began his career earlier than most jumpers too.

In fact, Roi Mage made his debut at the earliest possible opportunity for a three-year-old hurdler in France, doing so in early-March at Enghien, a track which no longer stages jump racing. He showed plenty of ability too, finishing runner-up in the big field of newcomers, though he wasn’t the only youngster in the field destined for a long and honourable career across the Channel.

Behind him in seventh was Sceau Royal who went on to win 16 races with Alan King for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, switching between hurdles and fences and making his final start in the 2023 Christmas Hurdle.

Roi Mage, on the other hand, remained in France to begin with under the care of leading trainer Francois Nicolle who wasted no time sending him over fences. After two more runs over hurdles, Roi Mage got off the mark on his chasing debut – in July of his three-year-old season! - at Clairefontaine. He did it in remarkable fashion too. Jumping two out, Roi Mage was only eighth behind a clear leader who still held a sizeable advantage on the run in, so much so that the commentator called him the winner inside the final furlong. But that proved premature because as the leader began to tie up, Roi Mage started to charge home after still being only fourth jumping the last, led close home and won with two lengths to spare.

That autumn, Roi Mage finished third at Auteuil in the top chase for three-year-olds, the Prix Congress, one place in front of Frodon who would go on to greater things in Britain for Paul Nicholls and Bryony Frost. While he initially failed to add to that dramatic debut win over fences, Roi Mage proved himself one of the best of his generation of four-year-old chasers at Auteuil and was beaten only a short head by the Congress winner Punch Nantais in the Group 1 Prix Ferdinand Dufaure.

In the seasons that followed, Roi Mage proved himself a smart chaser, gaining his biggest win in a Group 2 contest at Auteuil at the end of 2017, the Prix George Courtois, in which he made the most of the weight he was getting from the former Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris winner Milord Thomas.

Roi Mage contested the Grand Steeple himself three years running, though didn’t get very far on his first try in 2018 when getting brought down at the first by his own stablemate Bipolaire. A year later, the Nicolle pair fared much better, with Bipolaire and Roi Mage, beaten nearly twenty lengths in third, finishing placed behind the Davy Russell-ridden winner Carriacou.

By the time of his third Grand Steeple attempt, Roi Mage had changed stables, joining Jerome Larrigade, and was evidently at least as good as ever judging from a Group 3 win at Compiegne beforehand, though he was only eighth of the ten who completed in a Grand Steeple postponed until the autumn because of Covid.

A few more changes of trainer followed in France, and while Roi Mage was still capable of smart form rising ten years of age, it seemed that, in France at least, he would be struggling against younger rivals from now on. But a move to Irish trainer Patrick Griffin when bought to be a potential Grand National horse gave Roi Mage a new lease of life which he’s still very much enjoying now.

Roi Mage made his Irish debut as a 150/1-shot in the Red Mills Hurdle at Gowran in February 2022, but while that proved an insufficient test, he was successful on just his second start for new connections back over fences in a minor chase at Down Royal when beating shorter-priced rivals Agusta Gold and Samcro, trained by Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott respectively. However, connections would have to be patient regarding his Grand National participation as Roi Mage was only a reserve that year and failed to get a run, finishing well beaten instead at 100/1 in the Liverpool Hurdle.

But Roi Mage contested – and completed – the next two Grand Nationals in the same blue and yellow colours carried to victory by the Sue Smith-trained 66/1 winner Auroras Encore in 2013. Jim Beaumont, one of the owners of both horses, had once worked as a bell-boy at Liverpool’s famous Adelphi Hotel.

Roi Mage took well to the big fences in his first Grand National and was third after jumping two out before seeming to run out of stamina after the last and finishing seventh behind Corach Rambler. A year later, when he was the oldest horse in the race at the age of twelve, he finished ninth behind I Am Maximus after a less assured display of jumping.

He may yet get to improve his record around Aintree on Saturday, but Roi Mage has found his real vocation in his latter years in cross-country races back in the land of his birth. His first win in that sphere came in the Grand Steeple-Chase Cross-Country de Compiegne when showing his younger rivals the way home in that listed contest under James Reveley, who had sourced him in France for Griffin and has become his regular rider. Roi Mage already had a good record at Compiegne with five wins there earlier in his career over regular fences.

Roi Mage has also finished runner-up in the last two editions of the Grand Cross de Corlay, a ‘cross-country’ in the literal sense of the term and a world away from Aintree. Weaving its way through the countryside of Brittany, on two occasions the race takes the runners through a cornfield on the inside of the track.

However, it’s in the Grand Cross de Craon where Roi Mage has really excelled, winning the last two editions of the level-weights listed contest and picking up over €36,000 when retaining his title on his last start in September. Belying his teenage years, Roi Mage was a joy to watch leading his rivals a merry dance in the second half of the 3m6f contest, which is run over 31 varied obstacles, and then seeing off a couple of challengers in the home straight.

"It’s incredible what he’s doing at his age", marvelled Reveley afterwards. "There aren’t many horses like him. He’s unique." And there was praise too from the trainer of the runner-up, Guillaume Macaire, who described Roi Mage as "un cheval exceptionnel!" He’s trained a few of those himself, of course.

He’ll face a very different test back at Aintree, but Roi Mage clearly retains a remarkable level of enthusiasm, soundness and ability for one who has been plying his trade, without any significant interruption, for more than ten years now.

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