Brave Inca jumps the last on his way to the Champion Hurdle

Ten-time Grade 1 winner Brave Inca fondly remembered after his death at the age of 27

By Sporting Life

Horse Racing

Fri September 19, 2025 · 3M ago

Our racing team pay tribute to 10-time Grade 1 winner Brave Inca who died from colic at the age of 27 on Thursday.

Trained by Colm Murphy in County Wexford, the popular hurdler won 15 of his 35 starts including a Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in 2004 and 2006, respectively.

His Supreme victory came at the expense of future Gold Cup winner War Of Attrition, while his Champion Hurdle will live long in the memory as he outfought old rivals Hardy Eustace and Macs Joy a year on from losing to the latter horse in the vintage ‘Harchibald’ renewal.

“He was a long time ago, a fairytale horse,” Murphy said when recalling Brave Inca as he returned to the training ranks after a few years away from the daily rigours of training racehorses.

Fairytale is the right word. Brave Inca won a Fairyhouse handicap hurdle off a mark of 95 in the November of 2003 on his fifth hurdling start, just three-and-a-half months before his Supreme Novices’ win.

Punters loved him because he had the heart of a lion, the antithesis of Harchibald, who travelled all over him in the 2005 Champion Hurdle where Hardy Eustace beat them both in a finish of necks.

He was still winning at the top-level at the age of 11, his final victory coming in the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown in the January of 2009 and he was retired just two starts and three months later after the Punchestown Festival.

That was 16 years ago. He’s had a long and happy retirement until now. And there was never a horse named more suitably than Brave Inca.

AP McCoy celebrates his 2006 win on Brave Inca in the Champion Hurdle

What Brave Inca moment sticks out for our writers?

Dave Ord – His Supreme Novices’ victory

What a wonderful horse he was. The tough gunslinger who would often be first off the bridle but the last one beaten. The silky-smooth travelling sports cars with push-button acceleration needed to pass him in two strides. Beat him quickly or you won’t at all.

It was in the spring of 2004 that he first came to my attention, one of the buzz horses for the Cheltenham Festival from across the Irish Sea.

He had the Supreme, Sun Alliance and Coral Cup (off a ludicrously attractive mark) as his three March options. In the end they opted for the speed test and were duly rewarded, but only after an epic renewal.

We didn’t know at the time what he was eyeballing in the shape of runner-up War Of Attrition but from the second last hurdle they had the Supreme between them. The roars from the stand were deafening as they flew up the final flight and took dead aim at the finish line up the punishing hill.

They were locked together until the final 50 yards when at last Brave Inca held a definite neck advantage, one he was to hold to the post. We saw then what a high-quality two-mile hurdler he was but it was the steel in the finish, the sheer will to win, that was to continue to set him apart.

Ben Linfoot – His Champion Hurdle victory

In a vintage era for two-mile hurdlers – and from 2004 to 2007 it was certainly that – Brave Inca stood out for his courage and class in a division that was packed with quality.

In 2005-2006 he ruled the roost, winning four of his six starts, including three Grade 1 wins, both Harchibald and Macs Joy suffering defeats to him at Leopardstown in the December Festival and Irish Champion Hurdles.

Even though he was dominating the division he still had to go and prove it at the Cheltenham Festival, but he was in his pomp and punters knew it, sending him off the 7/4 favourite against his old rivals.

Ridden by AP McCoy, as he had been on his last five starts, the duo proved a match made in heaven, the Champion Jockey giving him reminders at halfway before driving him up the famous old hill in front of a raucous crowd who roared him home to the tune of a length over Macs Joy, with reigning champ Hardy Eustace over four lengths beaten in third.

It was the crowning glory for a battle-hardened horse who had progressed to the very top from relatively lowly beginnings. That 2005-06 season he was the punters' pal, finding loads for pressure whenever McCoy asked for more. His Champion Hurdle topped the lot.

Hardy Eustace (right) in action against rivals Harchibald and Brave Inca (left) in 2005

Matt Brocklebank - His part in the Hardy-Harchibald classic

There are hard-knocking two-mile hurdlers, those who return year after year. Then there was Brave Inca.

His form while ridden by A P McCoy was 1131112120. Nine of those 10 starts came in Grade 1s; the other a Grade 2. A match made in heaven and one that went a long way to defining the era, when Brave Inca’s captivating rivalry with Hardy Eustace, Macs Joy and Harchibald produced a myriad of stories.

The race a lot of punters remember most fondly from that period did not end in victory for Brave Inca, and yet it certainly wouldn’t have been the same without him.

The Smurfit Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2005 was an epic; a serious race also featuring the likes of Back In Front, Rooster Booster, Intersky Falcon and Al Eile. Barry Cash was in the saddle on Colm Murphy’s runner on that occasion and he sat prominently from the off, joining the eventual winner on the turn for home and battling all the way to the line as the front two played out their own little drama on the run-in.

Brave Inca gained his revenge the following spring, beating Macs Joy and Hardy Eustace under the McCoy drive. A Champion Hurdle to go along with his Supreme, a Deloitte, two Irish Champions, two Hatton’s Graces, two December Hurdles at Leopardstown, a Punchestown Champion Hurdle, a Morgiana, and a Hatton’s Grace. He was some horse alright.