5 of the Greatest Ever Arkle Challenge Trophy Winners
The Arkle Challenge Trophy is the second race on Day One of the Cheltenham Festival and it provides an opportunity for the fastest novice chasers around to promote their prospects for the following year’s Queen Mother Champion Chase.
It’s usually run at a frenetic gallop and one mistake, even a minor one, can effectively end your chances of winning. It, therefore, takes a certain kind of horse to win such a race and we’ve selected five of the best ever winners that went on to achieve greatness.
There are probably better horses that could have made the list ahead of Tidal Bay but only a few. An enigmatic character, he was capable of sheer brilliance when he wanted to turn up and was infamously hard to train or ride.
He won the 2008 Arkle by 13 lengths when trained by Howard Johnson, with a very impressive display and followed up in the Maghull at Aintree. Paul Nicholls later revived his career and his 2012 Lexus Chase win will live long in the memory. Not many horses could be beaten less than a length in a Welsh National off a mark of 163 at the age of 12, but he managed it.
One of two Nicky Henderson-trained horses on this list, Altior was already a 170-rated chaser when lining up in 2017. Whilst it won’t go down as a sterling renewal of the race, it’s impossible to knock the winner.
Altior had a 19-race winning streak which began in his novice hurdle days and continued until he was sent over a longer trip at Ascot in 2019. A winner of 10 Grade 1 races during his career, he went on to win two Champion Chases after his Arkle victory.
It’s fair to say that the list of horses who won a Queen Mother Champion Chase and an Irish Grand National in the same year is probably very short. Tom Dreaper’s Flyingbolt achieved that back in 1966, a year after he won the Arkle (named the Cotswold Chase at the time).
He was the shortest-priced winner of the Champion Chase ever, going off at 1/5, and he successfully carried a whopping 12st7lb to victory in the Irish Grand National. His famous Arkle win was the middle leg of his longstanding record of winning three different races in consecutive years at the Cheltenham Festival, which remained unmatched until Bobs Worth did so from 2011 until 2013.
Nicky Henderson’s popular chaser had placed in the 2011 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle but everyone knew that he would be a completely different proposition over fences. Sprinter Sacre had looked untouchable in three previous starts over fences and the Arkle was no different.
It was a pretty strong renewal and the top-class Cue Card had no answers to Sprinter Sacre’s unmatchable power, finishing seven lengths behind. Al Ferof had won the Supreme the previous year but couldn’t get within 30 lengths of Henderson’s superstar six-year-old.
Probably the greatest horse that Jessica Harrington has ever trained, Moscow Flyer was an unbelievably talented two-mile chaser. This horse’s biggest threat to success was his striking ability to blunder and unseat Barry Geraghty, who rode him on 38 of his 44 career starts.
He got the better of the favourite Seebald in the 2002 Arkle and followed up in the Champion Chase 12 months later. Moscow Flyer will long be remembered for his 2004 Tingle Creek success, where he beat Champion Chaser Azertyuiop and Well Chief, in what is considered one of the best races of all time.
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