Monksfield and Night Nurse duel in the 1977 Champion Hurdle

Local heroes remembered at Navan

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Mon November 17, 2025 · 3M ago

John Ingles recalls the careers of Monksfield and Troytown who are remembered in the names of races on Sunday's card.

Sunday’s card at Navan remembers a couple of its local heroes in the names of the day’s two biggest events. One of those is Troytown, a chaser whose two famous victories came far from County Meath but who was bred not far from Navan by his owner, Major Thomas Collins-Gerrard. Troytown is one of only two horses to have won both the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris and the Grand National, with his victory at Aintree in 1920 coming a year after his big win at Auteuil where he is also commemorated with the Prix Troytown, one of the main prep races for France’s top chase.

Troytown was ridden to success at Aintree by Jack Anthony when he was still an amateur, becoming the rider’s third Grand National winner. Along with his brothers, Owen and Ivor, each of whom later trained both Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle winners, Jack Anthony was inducted into the Jump Racing Hall of Fame at Cheltenham this week.

As well as the Troytown Handicap Chase, the card also features the Monksfield Novice Hurdle, though a Grade 3 contest is quite a modest tribute for a horse who proved himself one of the very best hurdlers of the last fifty years. In fact, it’s fifty years ago this season since Monksfield began his hurdling career as a juvenile, with his first win in the 1975/76 campaign coming in the Tara Maiden Hurdle at Navan which was his local track. He was trained not far away at Kells by Des McDonogh who had bought Monksfield for just 740 guineas as a two-year-old.

Monksfield won four times in Ireland during his juvenile campaign, including another race at Navan, but it was his effort in the Triumph Hurdle which stood out. His improvement at Cheltenham came as a surprise given he had had plenty of racing already, including on the Flat, but he was evidently well suited by the strong pace and kept on to finish second to the Mick Easterby-trained Peterhof.

Timeform was quick to recognise Monksfield as being ‘game and genuine’, something he would prove time and again in the seasons to come, but the rest of his assessment in Chasers & Hurdlers proved wide of the mark. ‘Lightly built, he probably lacks the physical scope to make a really good horse but nevertheless he should be a smart handicapper. He can be expected to show improvement when given the opportunity to race over longer distances than two miles…’

As it turned out, Monksfield’s attitude more than made up for his lack of stature, while two miles suited him just fine. He proved the latter point by finishing second in the Champion Hurdle a year later, beaten two lengths by the reigning champion, and an outstanding one at that, in Night Nurse. ‘We owe Monksfield an apology’ began his essay in the 1976/77 annual! Monksfield was kept busy in handicaps in Ireland for much of that season before Cheltenham, winning again at Navan along the way.

Monksfield and Night Nurse duel in the 1977 Champion Hurdle

Once again, though, it was a strongly-run race at Cheltenham that brought out the best in Monksfield. He was beaten only in the last eighty yards, battling on to finish two lengths second to Night Nurse who had put in the better jump of the two at the final flight. But things were to be closer still between the pair over the longer trip of the Templegate Hurdle at Aintree which proved not just the race of the season but a legendary battle between two of the greats from the ‘Golden Age’ of hurdling.

A bad mistake from the front-running Night Nurse three out enabled Monksfield, in receipt of 6 lb, to join issue soon afterwards and there was precious little between the pair from then on, Monksfield looking marginally the more probable winner at first but both proving inseparable at the line where a dead-heat was called. Showing no ill effects of such a hard race, in the weeks that followed Monksfield won on the Flat at Naas and finished fourth in a handicap back over hurdles at Punchestown conceding 38 lb to the winner.

In 1978, Ireland was able to celebrate its first Champion Hurdle winner for fifteen years. Monksfield was without a win in Ireland that season but, ridden by Tommy Kinane, who was still performing headstands in his kitchen on Facebook at the age of 85 (he died in 2023 at the age of 90), Monksfield went one better than in his two previous appearances at Cheltenham. Taking on Night Nurse soon after halfway, it was the latter’s stablemate Sea Pigeon who proved the bigger threat in the closing stages, but Monksfield got away from the final flight the quicker and went on to win by two lengths.

Tommy wasn’t the only Kinane to ride Monksfield to victory, by the way, as his then sixteen-year-old son Michael gained one of his earliest career wins on him in an apprentice race at Naas.

Further evidence that Night Nurse wasn’t quite the force of old came when Monksfield decisively beat him again in the Templegate Hurdle – in contrast to the year before, Monksfield was giving weight to his old rival. But carrying 12-0, he was conceding a lot more to the winner – fully two stone – when beaten three quarters of a length by Royal Gaye in the newly-instituted Royal Doulton Handicap Hurdle at Haydock where Night Nurse and Sea Pigeon again finished behind him.

As well as being Best Hurdler, Monksfield was Timeform’s Champion Jumper for the 1977/78 season, by the end of which, aged just six, he had already had 55 starts, 32 of them over hurdles. ‘His has been a strenuous career but there is no more willing worker in training’ said his essay in that year’s annual.

Monksfield and Sea Pigeon fought out the finish of the Champion Hurdle again in 1979 in a contest which Timeform regarded as a match for that epic dead-heat in the Templegate Hurdle – Night Nurse had had his attentions turned to chasing by now.

Monksfield had a new jockey this time, with Dessie Hughes – later to train dual Champion Hurdle winner Hardy Eustace – replacing Kinane who lost the ride after Monksfield’s owner had been unhappy with him being held up in a slowly-run race at Leopardstown the time before. In very testing conditions at Cheltenham, Hughes made the running on Monksfield but Jonjo O’Neill looked to have a double handful when cruising upsides on Sea Pigeon once into the straight.

Monksfield and Sea Pigeon do battle

Both jumped the final flight equally well before Sea Pigeon led for a few strides, ‘but Monksfield, head thrust forward in typical fashion, refused to give in and it was not long before Sea Pigeon was off the bridle. In a thrilling battle to the line Monksfield gradually edged ahead, showing the determination for which he is justly renowned to struggle home by three quarters of a length.’

Monksfield went on to win at Aintree for the third year running, doing so impressively with Sea Pigeon a faller at the last when beaten in third. For good measure, Monksfield beat another of the top-class hurdlers of that era, Bird’s Nest, in the Welsh Champion Hurdle at Chepstow, before finishing second again in the Royal Doulton under 12-0, this time to the Champion Hurdle third Beacon Light who was in receipt of 13 lb.

Now with a career-best rating of 180 – 2 lb behind Night Nurse at his best and matched since over hurdles only by Istabraq – Monksfield was assured of being Timeform’s Champion Jumper again. But a third Champion Hurdle the following season, for which he started the 6/5 favourite, eluded him, Sea Pigeon inflicting a first defeat on Monksfield in six meetings. Confirmation that Monksfield had lost some of his ability came at both Aintree – he was beaten at odds-on in a three-runner Templegate Hurdle – and in the Royal Doulton where he was only mid-division, again under 12-0.

But there was still one last win to come, the nineteenth of his career (five of those coming on the Flat). A win in an amateur riders event at Down Royal before his final run at Haydock was of little consequence compared to his victories at Cheltenham and Aintree, but it was notable for Monksfield being ridden by his trainer’s wife Helen just months after the birth of the McDonoghs’ son Declan, later to become Ireland’s champion Flat jockey.

‘A wonderful little horse, a top-class performer and one of the gamest horses we have ever set eyes on’ was how Timeform summed up Monksfield in one of his essays. But unlike most male jumpers, Monksfield’s story doesn’t end with his final race.

Kept as an entire, Monksfield went on to become a stallion. His stud career might have started sooner, however, as Monksfield’s rarity as a Champion Hurdle winner with stallion potential didn’t go unnoticed. After his first Champion Hurdle win in 1978, McDonogh apparently received a couple of letters expressing interest in Monksfield for breeding purposes, though both ended up on the fire - even if they were both signed John Magnier.

But when it was time for him to go to stud, Monksfield enjoyed some success, siring the likes of the Challow Hurdle runner-up Garrylough and the Velka Pardubicka winner Its A Snip, while a couple of his daughters (who were also full sisters) produced Grand National winner Monty’s Pass and Harbour Pilot who was twice placed in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Back to the present day, and fifty years after Monksfield began his hurdling career, Des McDonogh is still training a few horses. If the meeting passes its inspection, one of them, Verbal Sparring, will take his chance in the two-mile handicap hurdle where he’d no doubt be a most popular local winner.

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