Nicky Henderson trained Jonbon following in brother Douvan's footsteps on his way to Cheltenham Festival?

Jonbon’s impressive win in the Kennel Gate Novices’ Hurdle at Ascot kept his unbeaten record intact and resulted in his odds for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle being cut to as low as 7/4.

If successful at Cheltenham in March, he would be following in the footsteps of his brother Douvan who won the same race in 2015. It’s a very promising start, but Jonbon would probably need a Festival victory of his own before he begins to emerge from the shadow of his illustrious sibling who ran up a sequence of 14 straight wins which included a second Festival win in the following season’s Arkle.

Douvan’s winning streak had begun on his final start in France before he enjoyed three seasons of dominance for Willie Mullins which ended with a shock defeat when attempting a third win at Cheltenham in the 2017 Queen Mother Champion Chase. Plagued by injury thereafter, Douvan’s final win, the swansong of his career as it turned out, came in the 2019 Clonmel Oil Chase, which brought to an end an outstanding career over fences.

It therefore looks as though Star Face, the mare responsible for Douvan and Jonbon, has hit the bullseye with her only two foals to reach the track so far. Even more remarkable, perhaps, is that she’s done so despite her own racing record which saw her finish a distant last of five finishers in a four-year-old hurdle in France for Guillaume Macaire on her only start.

If Jonbon does win at Cheltenham in March, his dam would became just the latest broodmare to be able to boast two winners at the Cheltenham Festival, though not many have had two of their offspring win the very same race.

But the Cheltenham Gold Cup winners, Gay Donald (1955) and Pas Seul (1960), were half-brothers and, more recently, the Champion Hurdle was won by the full brothers Morley Street (1991) and Granville Again (1993). They almost pulled off a double on the same day at Cheltenham as Granville Again was runner-up in the Supreme the year Morley Street won the Champion Hurdle, while later they were to become racecourse rivals.

Morley Street finished down the field behind his younger brother in the 1993 Champion Hurdle, but on two other occasions that season he beat him into second, including in the Aintree Hurdle. Morley Street and Granville Again were out of the unraced mare High Board whose family continues to produce top horses; she’s now the great grandam of 2020 Champion Bumper winner Ferny Hollow who made a winning debut over fences earlier this month.

Two more siblings, Viking Flagship and Flagship Uberalles, were successful in the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the former winning it twice, in 1994 and 1995, and the latter doing so in 2002. The pair were both also winners of the Haldon Gold Cup and Tingle Creek, with Flagship Uberalles winning the latter race three times.

Although they were full brothers, Gaye Brief and Gaye Chance were Festival winners over very different trips, Gaye Brief winning the Champion Hurdle in 1983 a year before elder brother Gaye Chance won the Stayers’ Hurdle. Their dam Artiste Gaye also produced Black Humour who fell in Morley Street’s Champion Hurdle but went on to be very smart over fences.

More recently, Quintessence III matched Artiste Gaye’s feat by becoming dam of both a Champion Hurdle and Stayers’ Hurdle winner. Hors La Loi III won the Champion Hurdle in 2002 but again, despite being his full brother, he was a much speedier type than elder sibling Cyborgo who won the Stayers’ Hurdle in 1996 and went on to contest two Gold Cups and a Grand National.

A couple of recent Cheltenham Gold Cup winners have had Festival-winning siblings. Long Run famously beat Denman and Kauto Star at Cheltenham in 2011 six years after his rider Mr Sam Waley-Cohen won the Mildmay of Flete at the Festival on his half-sister Liberthine.

Lord Windermere won at the Festival for the second year running when a 20/1 winner of the 2014 Gold Cup (he’d won the RSA Chase there twelve months earlier), though his sibling It Came To Pass caused an even bigger upset on Gold Cup day six years later when winning the Foxhunters at 66/1. Remarkably, though, their dam Satellite Dancer was responsible for a higher-rated chaser than either of her Festival winners.

That was Sub Lieutenant, a full brother to It Came To Pass, who went closest to Festival success himself when runner-up in the Ryanair Chase in 2017.

Coneygree won the Gold Cup as a novice in 2015 following three unsuccessful attempts by half-brother Carruthers who nonetheless won the Hennessy Gold Cup in 2011.

We should also mention the mare Just Camilla who had just two foals who raced but they were the 1994 Grand National runner-up Just So and his top-class half-sister Dubacilla who was second in the Gold Cup the following year before finishing fourth herself at Aintree.

Other broodmares who have produced a pair of Festival winners in recent seasons are Tracker, herself half-sister to Champion Hurdle winner Make A Stand, the dam of Irish Cavalier (novices’ handicap chase in 2015) and Shattered Love (2018 JLT Novices’ Chase) and Royale Marie, the dam of Salut Flo (2012 Plate Handicap Chase) and Balko des Flos (2018 Ryanair Chase), the latter also runner-up in the latest Grand National.

Talking of the Grand National, that too has been won by a pair of half-brothers, Anglo in 1966 and Red Alligator two years later. Jonbon’s owner J. P. McManus won the Grand National for a second time when Minella Times was successful in April and had his colours carried into second by Cause of Causes in 2017.

The Flat-bred Cause of Causes was notable for being successful at three consecutive Festivals, in the National Hunt Chase, the Kim Muir and the Cross-Country, but if he’d gone one better at Aintree he would have completed an extraordinary double for his dam Angel In My Heart who was already dam of the 2003 Derby winner Kris Kin.

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