Istabraq

According to Timeform, Istabraq was the joint-second highest rated hurdler, alongside Monksfield and behind only Night Nurse, since the respected ratings organisation turned its attentions to National Hunt racing in the early Sixties. Hailed by his trainer, Aidan O’Brien, as ‘a class above everything he raced against’, Istabraq was a four-time winner at the Cheltenham Festival, beating Mighty Moss in a driving finish to what is now the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle in 1997, before winning the Champion Hurdle in 1998, 1999 and 2000 to become the first horse since See You Then in 1987 to win the race in three consecutive years.

Ridden exclusively by Charlie Swan, Istabraq ran in a total of 29 hurdle races and started favourite, mostly at odds-on, for all bar one of them. He fell twice, and was pulled up once, but in 26 completed starts was beaten just three times, including on his hurdling debut, as a four-year-old, at Punchestown in November, 1996. By the end of his career, Istabraq had racked 14 wins at Grade One level and over £1 million in prize money.

A son of champion sire Sadler’s Wells, out of a Secretariat mare, Istabraq was originally owned by Hamdan Al Maktoum and trained by John Gosden, for whom he won a couple of minor races, under Willie Carson and Pat Eddery, in 1995. He was subsequently sold to John Patrick ‘J.P.’ McManus, with a view to joining the late John Durkan, former assistant trainer to Gosden, who had plans to set up as a trainer in his own right. However, Durkan was diagnosed with leukaemia in late 1996, so Istabraq was transferred ‘temporarily’ to Aidan O’Brien, pending his recovery. Durkan was reportedly ‘overjoyed’ when Istabraq won his first race at the Cheltenham Festival but, tragically, died in January, 1998, at the age of just 31, shortly before Istabraq won his first Champion Hurdle.

According to Timeform, Istabraq was the joint-second highest rated hurdler, alongside Monksfield and behind only Night Nurse, since the respected ratings organisation turned its attentions to National Hunt racing in the early Sixties. Hailed by his trainer, Aidan O’Brien, as ‘a class above everything he raced against’, Istabraq was a four-time winner at the Cheltenham Festival, beating Mighty Moss in a driving finish to what is now the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle in 1997, before winning the Champion Hurdle in 1998, 1999 and 2000 to become the first horse since See You Then in 1987 to win the race in three consecutive years.

Ridden exclusively by Charlie Swan, Istabraq ran in a total of 29 hurdle races and started favourite, mostly at odds-on, for all bar one of them. He fell twice, and was pulled up once, but in 26 completed starts was beaten just three times, including on his hurdling debut, as a four-year-old, at Punchestown in November, 1996. By the end of his career, Istabraq had racked 14 wins at Grade One level and over £1 million in prize money.

A son of champion sire Sadler’s Wells, out of a Secretariat mare, Istabraq was originally owned by Hamdan Al Maktoum and trained by John Gosden, for whom he won a couple of minor races, under Willie Carson and Pat Eddery, in 1995. He was subsequently sold to John Patrick ‘J.P.’ McManus, with a view to joining the late John Durkan, former assistant trainer to Gosden, who had plans to set up as a trainer in his own right. However, Durkan was diagnosed with leukaemia in late 1996, so Istabraq was transferred ‘temporarily’ to Aidan O’Brien, pending his recovery. Durkan was reportedly ‘overjoyed’ when Istabraq won his first race at the Cheltenham Festival but, tragically, died in January, 1998, at the age of just 31, shortly before Istabraq won his first Champion Hurdle.